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DUNSANY  THE   DRAMATIST 


Courtesy  of  Mitchell  Kcnnerley] 

Lord  Dunsany  in  his  Service  Uniform 


DUNSANY   THE 
DRAMATIST 

BY 

EDWARD  HALE  BIERSTADT 

WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS 


NON- REFER? 


^V^VAD>a3S 


BOSTON 

LITTLE,  BROWN,   AND  COMPANY 

1917 


Copyright,  1917, 
By  Littlb,  Bkown,  and  Compant. 


All  rights  reserved 
Published,  February,  1917 


Set  up  and  electrotyped  by  J.  S.  Cusbiag  Co.,  Norwood,  liass.,  U.S.A. 
PiesBwork  by  S.  J.  Parkhill  &  Co.,  Boston,  Mass.,  U.S. A. 


College 
library 


TO 

LOUISE 

TraS  BOOK  IS  DEDICATED ;    FOR  IT  WAS  HER  HAND  THAT 

FIRST   UNLOCKED   FOR   ME    THE   GOLDEN   GATES  OF 

THE    UNDREAMED    CITY    OF   WONDER,    AND   IT 

WAS    SHE   WHO    FIRST   LED   ME    THROUGH 

THE    WONDROUS     STREETS     TO    THE 

LORD  OF  THAT  CITY  —  DUNSANY. 


1157598 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

It  is  with  pleasure  that  I  acknowledge  here 
my  indebtedness  to  Stuart  Walker  for  valu- 
able material  used  in  this  book,  and  for  photo- 
graphs of  those  of  the  Dunsany  plays  which 
were  produced  in  the  Portmanteau  Theater. 

Miss  Alice  Lewisohn  has  also  placed  me 
under  obligations  by  permitting  me  to  use 
her  picture  of  Lord  Dunsany,  as  well  as  by 
aiding  me  with  certain  material.  The  Neigh- 
borhood Playhouse  has  provided  me  with  pic- 
tures, as  has  Mitchell  Kennerley,  and  to  them 
too  I  am  indebted. 

It  is  through  the  courtesy  of  Sam  Hume, 
Director  of  the  Arts  and  Crafts  Theater  of 
Detroit,  that  I  am  able  to  use  the  picture 
showing  ''The  Tents  of  the  Arabs"  in  pro- 
duction. The  set  for  this  play  was  designed 
by  Mr.  Hume  and  is  especially  beautiful. 

vii 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 


To  Padraic  Colum,  and  to  J.  M.  Kerrigan, 
I  am  obliged  for  information  about  the  Dun- 
sany  plays,  and  for  material  concerning  Lord 
Dunsany  himself  —  which  I  trust  they  will 
not  regret  having  given !  And  to  my  friend 
Barrett  H.  Clark  I  express  my  gratitude  for 
his  never-failing  patience,  and  kindly  —  though 
somewhat  caustic  —  criticism  ! 

This  is  a  long  list  of  acknowledgments  for 
so  small  a  book,  and  rightly  the  list  should  be 
even  longer.  I  have  no  excuse  to  offer,  but 
in  explanation  I  suggest  that  a  certain  num- 
ber of  ** accomplices  before  the  fact"  are 
sometimes  highly  to  be  desired. 

E.  H.  B. 


viii 


CONTENTS 


PAGB 

I    The  Man 1 

II    His  Work 23 

III  His  Philosophy 108 

IV  Letters 133 

Appendix 169 


iz 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Lord  Dunsany  in  his  Service  Uniform    Frontispiece 

PAGE 

Edward  John  Moreton  Drax  Plunkett,  Lord 

Dunsany 6 

A  Page  of  a  Letter  from  Lord  Dunsany,  who 

writes  with  a  Quill  .        .        .        .        .12 

Lord   Dunsany,   Captain,   5th   Royal   Innis- 

killing  Fusiliers 16 

The  gate  opens  —  and  there  is  nothing  there. 

The  Glittering  Gate 26 

The  slaves  see  Argimenes  kill  the  guard. 
King  Argimenes  and  the  Unknown 
Warrior 30 

Agmar  threatens  the  citizens  with  a  doom. 

The  Gods  of  the  Mountain        ...      46 

The  Chief  Prophet  interprets  the  writing  on 

the  door.    The  Golden  Doom   ...      58 

xi 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

The  Toff  deceives  the  Priest  into  thinking  he 

is  dead.    A  Night  at  an  Inn  ...      73 

The  Queen  welcomes  her  guests.     The  Queen* s 

Enemies 80 

The  Queen  reassures  her  guests.     The  Queen's 

Enemies 84 

Bel-Narb  and  Aoob  before  the  gates  of  the 

city.     The  Tents  of  the  Arabs  ...      92 

Agmar  tells  the  one  who  doubts  to  go.     The 

Gods  of  the  Mountain       ....     138 

Agmar  tells  Slag  to  have  a  prophecy  made. 

The  Gods  of  the  Mountain        .        .        .    144 

A  Page  of  a  Letter  from  Lord  Dunsany         .    162 

Argimenes  at  last  mounts  the  throne  of  Dar- 
niak.  King  Argimenes  and  the  Unknown 
Warrior 166 


xu 


DUNSANY  THE  DRAMATIST 


DUNSANY  THE  DRAMATIST 


The  Man 

For  about  the  last  quarter  century,  or  from 
the  time  when  Ibsen  began  to  come  into  his 
own,  the  history  of  hterature  is  at  one  with  the 
history  of  the  drama.  The  great  Uterary  artists 
of  this  period  have  nearly  all  chosen  the  dra- 
matic medium,  and,  though  they  have  not  con- 
fined themselves  to  it  exclusively  by  any  means, 
the  more  notable  of  their  works  have  found 
expression  in  this  form.  The  nineteenth  cen- 
tury was  undeniably  that  of  the  novel;  the 
twentieth  seems  to  be  quite  as  immistakably 
that  of  the  play. 

In  those  countries  where  the  drama  assumed 
proportions  of  a  national  movement  the  develop- 
ment was  for  the  most  part  gradual,  its  scope 
widening  as  its  intensity  increased.  There  are 
definite  reasons  why  the  dramatic  art  should 

1 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

tend  toward  "national"  expression  in  a  greater 
degree  than  any  other  of  the  arts.  The  most 
fundamental  reason  may  well  be  that  the  drama 
is  part  and  parcel  of  the  art  of  the  theater,  and 
that  the  theater  is  the  great  co-operative  art. 
Co-operation,  in  theory  at  any  rate,  is  our 
inheritance  from  the  last  century;  there  is 
hardly  a  phase  of  life  where  its  influence  has 
not  become  evident  in  a  greater  or  less  degree, 
but  in  the  arts  there  seems  to  be  but  one  logical 
outlet  for  the  trend.  That  outlet  is  the  theater, 
and  the  spirit  of  co-operation  has  perhaps  been 
one  of  the  greatest  factors  in  instilling  a  new  and 
increased  vitality  into  the  theatric  and  dramatic 
arts.  It  is  strange,  and  yet  not  so  strange, 
that  one  of  the  least  co-operative  countries  on 
earth  should  have  felt  this  influence  so  keenly. 
This  coimtry  is  Ireland,  and  it  is  perhaps  be- 
cause of  the  hyper-sensitiveness  of  the  Irish 
people  that  they  reacted  so  sharply  to  an  ele- 
ment which  was  in  reality  foreign  to  them. 
And  it  is  again  perhaps  because  that  element  was 
alien  that  Ireland  having  reached  a  pinnacle  of 
greatness  permitted  the  movement  to  decline 
until  now  it  seems  to  have  little  besides  a  past. 
The  inherent  inability  of  the  Irish  to  co-operate 
2 


THE    MAN 


successfully  over  an  extended  period  of  time 
was,  however,  but  one  of  the  factors  that  brought 
about  the  change.  The  great  war,  and  that 
rising  among  the  intellectuals  in  Ireland  that 
soon  followed  it,  were  fatally  destructive  ele- 
ments, if  only  in  the  dreadful  loss  of  life  which 
they  entailed.  But  Ireland  has  contributed 
her  share,  and  more  than  her  share,  to  the  great 
dramatic  movement  that  has  swept  the  nations. 
It  was  about  1899  that  W.  B.  Yeats  and 
Edward  Martyn  inaugurated  the  Irish  Literary 
Theater  in  Dublin.  At  this  time  Lord  Dunsany 
was  in  the  Transvaal  with  his  regiment,  for 
the  Boer  war  had  just  started.  That  is  doubt- 
less one  reason  why  we  do  not  hear  of  him  until 
the  Irish  literary  movement  had  been  under 
way  for  some  years ;  indeed  it  was  in  1909,  ten 
years  afterwards,  that  "The  Glittering  Gate'^ 
Dunsany's  first  play,  was  produced  at  the  Abbey 
Theater.  There  is  no  necessity  to  recapitulate 
here  the  history  of  the  Irish  Literary  Theater 
or  the  Abbey  Theater  Company  as  it  finally 
became.  That  history  has  already  been  written. 
Great  names  are  connected  with  it  —  Yeats, 
Moore,  Martyn,  Hyde,  "A.  E.",  Robinson, 
Ervine,  Shaw,  Colum,  Lady  Gregory,  Synge, 

3 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

and  Dunsany  have  all  had  their  share,  as  well  as 
many  others,  in  developing  a  national  dramatic 
literature  which  has  spread  its  influence  over 
the  entire  English  speaking  race.  The  drama 
so  generated  and  developed  was  a  direct  reaction 
against  the  drama  fathered  by  Ibsen,  and  yet 
to  a  certain  extent  there  is  a  superficial  resem- 
blance between  the  two.  The  form  is  the  same 
certainly,  and  so  also  is  the  terminology.  That 
is,  we  have  people  who  are  true  to  life  speaking 
lines  which  are  equally  true.  But  the  philos- 
ophy, the  point  of  view  which  was  brought  to 
bear  on  the  work  was  essentially  dissimilar. 
This  has  been  summed  up  well  and  succinctly 
by  Edwin  Bjorkman : 

"Observation  and  imagination  are  the  basic 
principles  of  all  poetry.  It  is  impossible  to 
conceive  a  poetical  work  from  which  one  of 
them  is  wholly  absent.  Observation  without 
imagination  makes  for  obviousness;  imagina- 
tion without  observation  turns  into  nonsense. 
What  marks  the  world's  greatest  poetry  is 
perhaps  the  presence  in  almost  equal  propor- 
tions of  both  of  these  principles.  But  as  a 
rule  we  find  one  of  them  predominating,  and 
from  this  one-sided  emphasis  the  poetry  of  the 
4 


THE    MAN 


period  derives  its  character  as  realistic  or 
idealistic. 

''The  poetry  of  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century  made  a  fetish  of  observation.  It  came 
as  near  to  excluding  imagination  as  it  could 
without  ceasing  entirely  to  be  poetry.  That 
such  exaggeration  should  sooner  or  later  result 
in  a  sharp  reaction  was  natural."  ^ 

Once  grant  Mr.  Bjorkman's  premise  (it  is 
certainly  a  fair  one),  and  it  is  clear  that  it  is  to 
the  British  Isles  we  must  look  for  that  new 
voice  among  the  singers  of  the  world,  for  since 
the  Renaissance,  Britain  has  always  produced 
the  greatest  poets,  just  as  France  has  given 
us  the  greatest  painters,  and  Germany  the 
finest  musicians.  Out  of  Ireland  it  came,  and 
that  land,  waking  out  of  its  long  winter^s  sleep, 
blossomed  and  flowered  in  overpowering  abun- 
dance. The  hand  that  waked  the  sleeper  was 
that  of  Yeats.  It  was  he  who  discovered  Synge 
—  the  greatest  genius  of  them  all  —  and  it  was 
he  who  found  Dunsany.  It  will  be  well  perhaps 
to  pause  and  tell  a  little  something  of  Dunsany 
himself   before   we   turn   to   his  work.    Vital 

1  "  Five  Plays,"  By  Lord  Dunsany.  Introduction  by  Edwin 
Bjorkman. 

5 


'DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

statistics  are  not  always  interesting,  but  they 
are  often  necessary,  and  so  let  us  try  if  we  can 
come  so  close  to  the  man  as  to  understand  and 
appreciate  his  plays  and  his  point  of  view  a 
little  better. 

Lord  Dunsany's  family  name  is  Edward  John 
Moreton  Drax  Plunkett,  or  it  might  be  more  cor- 
rect to  say  that  those  are  his  Christian  and  his 
family  names.  He  is  the  eighteenth  Baron  of  his 
line,  and  his  name  and  ancestry  are  said  to  be 
the  third  oldest  in  Irish  history.  In  1899  he 
succeeded  to  the  title,  and  to  the  family  estates 
in  Meath.  These  estates  comprise  many  acres 
of  the  most  historic  land  in  Ireland,  and  within 
sight  of  Dunsany  Castle  rises  the  great  Hill  of 
Tara,  famous  in  song  and  story.  Bom  in  1878, 
Lord  Dunsany  was  educated  at  Eton  and 
Sandhurst,  and  then  entered  the  army.  He  saw 
active  service  with  the  Coldstream  Guards 
during  the  South  African  war,  and  there  is  a 
faint  memory  of  the  hardships  undergone  at 
this  period  in  ''King  Argimenes  and  the  Un- 
known Warrior",  when  the  slaves  cry  for  the 
bones  of  the  King's  great  dog  to  eat.  There  was 
a  time  in  South  Africa  when  there  were  not  even 
bones.  It  is  interesting  too  to  observe  that 
6 


Courtesy  of  Mitchell  Kennerley 

Edward  John  Moreton  Drax  Plunkett,  Lord  Dunsany 


THE    MAN 


Lord  Dunsany's  uncle  is  Sir  Horace  Plunkett, 
who  labored  so  long  and  earnestly  to  introduce 
the  idea  of  co-operation  in  agriculture  among 
the  peasants  in  Ireland.  It  was  Sir  Horace 
who  took  *'A.  E."  from  a  clerk's  office,  upon 
Yeats'  recommendation  be  it  noted,  to  send 
him  as  ambassador  among  the  rural  classes  in 
Ireland,  and  this  was  the  beginning  of  "A.  E.'s" 
career.  Somehow  one  always  comes  back  to 
Yeats.  But  now  I  must  return  to  Dunsany. 
His  family,  by  the  way,  are  said  to  be  of 
Danish  origin,  and  to  have  settled  in  Ireland 
sometime  before  the  Norman  conquest.  Per- 
haps that  is  one  reason  why  his  gods  are  not 
the  gods  of  Ireland;  one  reason  why  there 
is  a  strain  of  northern  mysticism,  weird, 
indefinable,  and  implacable  withal  running 
through  his  work. 

It  must  have  been  about  1902  or  1903  when 
we  first  find  mention  of  Dunsany  in  connection 
with  the  literary  movement  in  Ireland.  George 
Moore  remarks  in  speaking  of  A.  E.,  "He 
was  offered  some  hundreds  of  pounds  by  Lord 
Dunsany  to  found  a  review,  but  he  had  not 
time  to  edit  it,  and  proposed  John  Eglinton. 
'Contrairy  John'  wanted  to  see  life  steadily, 

7 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

and  to  see  it  whole;  and  Yeats  came  along 
with  a  sneer,  and  said :  '  I  hear,  Lord  Dunsany, 
that  you  are  going  to  supply  groundsel  for 
A.  E.'s  canaries.'  The  sneer  brought  the 
project  to  naught.  ..."  And  so  the  review 
was  not  founded.  Nevertheless  this  must  have 
been  Dunsany's  initial  entrance  as  a  patron 
of  art.  His  first  published  book  was  issued 
in  1905,  but  his  first  play  did  not  appear  until 
1909,  when  "The  Glittering  Gate''  was  put 
on  at  the  Abbey  Theater,  Dublin.  "King 
Argimenes  and  the  Unknown  Warrior"  fol- 
lowed in  February  of  1911  at  the  Abbey,  and 
the  next  Jime  "The  Gods  of  the  Mountain" 
went  on  at  the  Haymarket  Theater,  London. 
Then  came  "The  Golden  Doom"  at  the  Hay- 
market  in  November  of  1912,  after  which  it  was 
played  successfully  through  a  number  of  Rus- 
sian cities.  The  productions  of  both  "The 
Gods  of  the  Mountain"  and  "The  Golden 
Doom"  were  entirely  successful,  the  first  so 
much  so  that  William  A.  Brady,  the  American 
producer,  brought  the  production  intact  from 
the  Haymarket,  except  as  to  cast,  and  put  it 
on  in  Buffalo,  New  York.  It  failed  promptly 
for  reasons  which  will  be  taken  up  when  we 
8 


THE    MAN 


come  to  consider  the  individual  plays.  This 
was  in  the  summer  of  1912.  The  next  produc- 
tion was  that  of  "The  Lost  Silk  Hat"  by  B. 
Iden  Payne  at  Manchester  in  August  of  1913, 
during  the  repertory  season  there.  In  1914 
"The  Glittering  Gate"  was  put  on  at  the  Neigh- 
borhood Playhouse,  New  York,  to  be  followed 
by  "A  Night  at  an  Inn"  and  "The  Queen's 
Enemies"  in  1916,  all  at  the  same  theater. 
These  two  last  plays  have  not  as  yet  had  an 
English  production.  Thus  the  season  of  1916 
was  a  splendid  one  for  Dunsany  in  America,  for 
at  the  same  time  that  "The  Queen's  Enemies" 
was  put  on  at  the  Neighborhood  Playhouse, 
"The  Gods  of  the  Mountain",  "KingArgimenes 
and  the  Unknown  Warrior",  and  "The  Golden 
Doom"  were  staged  by  Stuart  Walker  in  his 
Portmanteau  Theater,  which  may  be  said  to 
be  of  New  York,  Tientsin,  and  Thalanna,  for 
it  is  a  traveling  theater.  The  productions  of 
the  Dunsany  plays  were  most  beautifully  done, 
however,  and  all  New  York  was  Dunsany  mad 
on  the  instant.  That  is  roughly  the  history 
of  Dunsany's  dramatic  career.  It  covers  only 
eight  years,  but  surely  those  eight  years  have 
come  to  a  most  wonderful  fruition. 

9 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

Lord  Dunsany's  style  is  at  once  the  wonder 
and  despair  of  his  contemporaries;  wonder  at 
its  sheer,  hmpid  beauty,  its  melodic  charm  — 
sometimes  his  lines  are  perfect  hexameters, 
defying  comparison  with  anything  since  Homer 
—  and  despair  at  their  inability  to  reach  the 
same  high  level  of  excellence.  This  style  seems 
to  have  been  due  in  some  part  to  a  process  of 
rather  involuntary  elimination.  During  his 
youth  at  Dunsany  Castle  he  was  never  allowed 
to  see  or  to  read  a  newspaper  lest  he  become 
contaminated  by  the  filth  circulated  in  the 
daily  press.  His  books  were  watched  over  as 
carefully,  and  for  many  years  no  style  seemed 
to  him  natural  but  that  of  the  Bible.  "I 
feared  that  I  would  never  become  a  writer  when 
I  saw  that  other  people  did  not  use  it,"  said 
he  in  speaking  of  this  period.  With  the  Bible 
he  was  permitted  Grimm's  and  Hans  Ander- 
sen's fairy  tales,  and  soon  afterwards  he  was 
able  to  recognize  his  like  in  the  splendour  of  the 
literature  of  the  Golden  Age  of  Greece.  This 
has  remained,  I  believe,  his  strongest  influence, 
affecting  both  his  manner  of  expression  and  his 
point  of  view.  The  lovely  imagery  of  the  Greeks, 
and  the  pure  melody  of  their  lines,  are  reflected 
10 


THE    MAN 


in  his  style,  and  in  his  philosophy  may  be  found 
man  in  his  relationship  to  the  gods  or  to  the 
cosmos  even  as  it  was  in  the  "olden,  golden 
evenings"  of  Euripides. 

To  be  the  best  pistol  shot  in  Ireland  is  no 
small  boast,  but  it  is  one  that  Lord  Dunsany 
can  make  if  he  so  wishes.  He  is  a  keen  cricketer 
too,  and  has  been  captain  of  his  County  Club 
team.  Often  he  is  off  for  all  day  in  the  saddle, 
for  he  is  a  good  horseman,  and  on  these  days 
his  writing  is  done  in  the  wee,  small  hours. 
Altogether  Dunsany  leads  the  life  of  the  normal, 
healthy  Anglo-Saxon,  loving  the  out  of  doors, 
and  rejoicing  greatly  in  it  all  from  the  warmth 
of  the  sun  to  the  glistening  dew,  and  the  cool 
splendour  of  the  moonlight.  There  is  not  a 
morbid  bone  in  his  body  and  that  is  why,  when 
I  hear  him  compared  rapturously  with  Strind- 
berg,  I  am  forced  to  smile.  He  is  happy  in 
his  friends,  and  in  his  wife  and  little  boy,  and 
only  desires  to  be  allowed  to  remain  so.  Lady 
Dunsany  is  the  daughter  of  Lord  Jersey.  She 
is  intellectual,  and  she  is  attractive,  perhaps 
charming  would  be  a  better  word  though  it  is 
somewhat  overused,  and  for  the  purposes  of 
the  present  sketch  it  will  be  enough  to  say  that 

11 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

she  is  an  ideal  wife  for  such  a  husband.  Pic- 
ture to  yourself  Lord  Dunsany  and  his  guest 
Bernard  Shaw  sailing  paper  boats  in  the  pond 
at  Dunsany  Castle,  and  see  whether  you  too 
cannot  get  the  eternal  spirit  of  childhood  which 
makes  such  a  scene  not  only  possible  but  keenly 
pleasurable  to  the  participants.  Did  you  never 
sail  paper  boats,  and  would  you  not  like  to 
do  it  again? 

As  I  said,  much  of  Dunsany's  work  is  done 
at  night,  and,  it  is  an  infinitely  small  point 
but  an  amusing  one,  it  is  all  done  with  quill 
pens,  a  large  supply  of  which  he  keeps  before 
him.  I  remember  when  I  first  saw  a  letter  from 
him  I  wondered  whether  he  used  a  brush  as  the 
Japanese  do.  It  seemed  to  me  that  nothing 
else  would  make  such  great  lines.  His  work 
is  not  methodical;  he  does  it  when  the  fit  is 
on  him,  and  there  is  no  reason  why  he  should 
not,  for  he  is  not  only  independent  of  the  public 
economically,  but  mentally  and  spiritually  as 
well.  Yet  he  is  eager  for  praise,  as  who  is 
not  who  has  respect  for  his  work.  He  is  in- 
tensely desirous  of  being  accepted  by  the  public, 
of  having  others  love  his  gods  as  he  does.  And 
yet  appreciation  has  come  to  him  slowly.  His 
12 


A  Page  of  a  Letter  from  Lord  Dunsany,  Who  Writes 
WITH  A  Quill 


THE    MAN 


first  book  was  published  at  his  own  expense, 
and  even  the  illustrator  was  paid  by  him.  I 
saw  a  first  edition  of  this  book  the  other  day 
listed  at  fifteen  times  the  original  retail  price. 
Publishers  seemed  to  think  that  a  "Lord"  had 
not  to  think  of  money,  yet  Lord  Dunsany  is 
not  rich  as  such  things  go  nowadays.  For  a 
poet  he  is  without  doubt  fabulously  wealthy, 
but  for  a  peer  he  is  rather  poor.  One  of  his 
chief  characteristics  is  his  intense  eagerness. 
This  quality  is  apparent  in  his  attitude  toward 
everything;  his  work,  his  play,  his  desire  for 
appreciation,  and  his  whole  outlook  upon  life 
as  a  whole  and  in  particular.  Eager  is  a  very 
good  word  to  use  in  that  connection,  for  it 
conveys  in  some  wise  that  naivete  of  which  it 
is  an  essential  part. 

It  is  said,  even  by  his  friends,  that  Lord 
Dunsany  is  the  worst  dressed  man  in  Ireland. 
"He  looks,"  remarked  one  of  these  friends, 
"as  if  he'd  stood  there  naked,  and  had  his  clothes 
hurled  at  him,  leaving  them  wherever  they 
happened  to  land."  I  may  be  wrong,  but  I 
believe  this  statement  is  slightly  exaggerated. 
However  —  !  In  appearance  Lord  Dunsany  is 
tall,  quite  six  feet  two,  and  rather  slender,  with 

13 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

fair  hair,  and  kindly  eyes  from  which  the  won- 
der has  not  yet  vanished,  and  with  the  most 
exquisitely  sensitive  mouth  in  the  world.  Was 
it  not  Thoreau,  by  the  way,  who  said:  "Who 
am  I  to  complain  who  have  not  yet  ceased  to 
wonder?"    Lord  Dunsany  is  like  that. 

His  attitude  toward  his  title  of  Peer  as  well 
as  his  title  of  Poet  is  immensely  characteristic 
of  the  man.  Though  he  is  the  eighteenth 
Baron  of  his  line  his  dignity  has  lost  none  of  its 
freshness  for  him  in  tradition;  rather  it  has 
gained.  Strangers  meeting  him  for  the  first 
time  sometimes  go  away  feeling  that  he  is 
too  haughty  for  them,  but  they  do  not  under- 
stand. He  is  haughty,  and  he  is  proud  when 
the  occasion  warrants  it,  but  it  is  never  the 
hauteur  or  the  false  pride  of  a  snob.  It  is 
simply  his  absolute  sense  of  the  fitness  of  things. 
It  is  as  if  he  said  —  what  is  the  use  of  having  a 
title  or  of  being  a  poet  if  you  don't  get  all  the 
fun  out  of  it  that  you  can  ?  The  attitude  of  a 
small  boy  toward  his  first  pair  of  long  trousers, 
or  of  a  girl  toward  her  first  lover  is  entirely 
similar.  But  perhaps  the  best  comparison  is  to 
say  that  Lord  Dunsany  and  Don  Quixote  are 
very  nearly  one  and  the  same.  To  know  that 
14 


THE    MAN 


he  is  a  Baron  with  centuries  of  tradition  behind 
him,  to  reaUze  that  his  great  estates  are  a  his- 
toric landmark  in  Ireland,  and  then  above  all 
to  be  a  Poet  into  the  bargain  —  what  more 
could  the  heart  of  small  boy  or  Dunsany  him- 
self wish  for  ?    And  how  he  must  enjoy  it  all ! 

Lord  Dunsany  is  an  Imperialist  of  the  Im- 
perialists largely,  I  think,  because  it  satisfies 
his  sense  of  romance.  Once  on  a  time  Lord 
Dunsany  was  candidate  at  the  elections,  and  his 
joy  passed  the  bounds  of  enthusiasm  when  he 
found  that  he  was  beaten.  Politics  do  not  in- 
terest him  except  as  they  serve  to  complete  the 
picture.  He  sees  himself  as  a  romantic,  a  feudal 
figure,  and  because  he  does  so  see  himself  he  is 
one.  But  his  point  of  view  on  all  this  is  that  of 
the  joyous  child  playing  with  glittering  toys, 
and  seeking  new  worlds  to  conquer  over  the 
sand  hills.  G.  K.  Chesterton,  in  "Manalive'', 
drew  Dunsany's  picture  for  once  and  all. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  present  war  Lord 
Dunsany  was  Captain  in  the  5th  Royal  Innis- 
killing  Fusiliers.  He  went  at  the  head  of  his 
company  to  Gallipoli,  returning  safely  to  Ire- 
land only  to  be  wounded  in  the  Dublin  riots. 
For  a  time,  before  resuming  to  the  front,  he 

15 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

was  in  barracks  recovering  from  his  wound.  In 
Dunsany's  company  was  Francis  Ledwidge,  the 
Irish  poet  whom  Dunsany  himself  discovered. 
Ledwidge  is  of  peasant  stock,  a  poet  of  the  soil, 
and  the  beauty  of  his  lyrics  might  perchance 
have  been  lost  to  the  world  had  it  not  been  for 
Dunsany's  kindly  interest.  It  was  Dunsany 
who  wrote  the  Introduction  to  Ledwidge's  first 
book  of  verse,  and  in  this  Introduction  is  a  pas- 
sage which  in  its  summing  up  of  Ledwidge  sums 
up  Dunsany  himself  so  well  that  I  shall  quote 
it  here.  "Of  pure  poetry  there  are  two  kinds, 
that  which  mirrors  the  beauty  of  the  world  in 
which  our  bodies  are,  and  that  which  builds  the 
more  mysterious  kingdoms,  where  geography 
ends  and  fairyland  begins,  with  gods  and  heroes 
at  war,  and  the  sirens  singing  still,  and  Alph 
going  down  to  the  darkness  from  Xanadu. 
Mr.  Ledwidge  gives  us  the  first  kind."  And 
Lord  Dunsany  gives  us  the  second. 

It  was  for  Yeats  that  Lord  Dunsany's  first 
play  was  written.  Yeats  wanted  a  play  for  the 
Abbey  Theater  and,  though  Dunsany  had  never 
written  a  play,  Yeats  asked  him  to  try  what 
he  could  do.  "The  Glittering  Gate"  was  the 
result,  one  which  never  pleased  its  author, 
16 


THE    MAN 


feeling  as  he  did  its  vagueness  and  its  faulty 
construction.  The  play  is  much  less  important 
in  itself  than  in  its  indication  of  what  might 
follow.  It  was  Yeats,  too,  who  at  this  time 
gave  Dunsany  the  only  lesson  he  ever  had  in 
dramatic  construction ;  the  pupil  has  advanced 
far  beyond  his  master  now.  "Surprise,"  said 
Yeats,  "is  what  is  necessary.  Surprise,  and 
then  more  surprise,  and  that  is  all."  However 
greatly  Dunsany's  plays  have  grown  in  other* 
ways  it  can  never  be  said  at  least  that  this  early 
lesson  was  wasted,  for  to  this  day  surprise  is 
one  of  their  chief  elements  of  delight.  But 
such  a  bit  of  advice  from  the  gentle  Yeats 
might  have  ruined  the  work  of  one  who  had 
less  dramatic  instinct  than  Dunsany.  And 
does  not  what  I  have  said  about  the  man  him- 
self show  the  presence  of  such  instinct  quite 
apart  from  the  plays  ? 

The  three  great  contemporary  dramatic  poets 
of  Ireland  are  Synge,  Dunsany,  and  Yeats. 
Now  while  comparisons  are  said  to  be  odious 
they  are  at  the  same  time  often  enlightening, 
and  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  compare  in  a  general 
way  these  three  men  who  stand  at  the  top  of 
the  great  literary  movement  of  the  day. 

17 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

Dunsany  and  Yeats  are  alike  in  that  they 
both  are  more  interested  in  ideas  than  in  people. 
Therein  lies  at  once  their  strength  and  their 
weakness.  Of  the  three  Synge  was  the  only  one 
who  knew  poverty  and  misfortune  in  plenitude ; 
his  whole  life  was  such  as  to  emphasize  the 
human  element,  as  the  lives  of  Dunsany  and 
Yeats  have  been  to  make  this  element  of  less 
account.  They  have  lived  in  a  dream  world. 
A  poet  considers  things  and  people  in  three 
ways  —  in  their  relation  to  themselves,  in  their 
relation  to  each  other,  and  in  their  relation  to 
the  whole.  The  greatest  poet  is  he  who  in  his 
work  is  able  to  see  and  to  express  things  in  all 
three  ways.  Synge's  weakness  lay  in  the  fact 
that  as  a  rule  he  saw  people  in  their  relation  to 
themselves  and  to  each  other,  but  not  in  their 
relationship  to  the  whole  scheme  of  things.  It  is 
only  in  one  play,  his  greatest,  "The  Riders  to 
the  Sea'',  that  he  achieved  and  made  plain  this 
triple  relationship,  and  that  play  alone  marks 
a  height  to  which  no  one  of  his  fellows  has 
yet  been  able  to  climb.  "The  Riders  to  the 
Sea"  is  one  of  the  great  masterpieces  of  modem 
drama.  George  Moore  rated  it  below  "The 
Well  of  the  Saints"  because  it  was  less  of  the 
18 


THE    MAN 


soil,  which  is  to  say  less  local,  but  that  which 
Moore  pointed  as  its  weakness  is  in  reality  its 
strength;  that  is  what  makes  it  akin  to  the 
Greek  drama,  its  realization  of  man  in  his 
relation  to  the  cosmos,  of  his  impotency,  and 
of  the  great  cosmic  implacability.  "The  Riders 
to  the  Sea"  is,  however,  an  isolated  example 
of  this  quality  in  Synge's  work.  Yeats  and 
Dunsany  err  on  the  other  side:  their  outlook 
is  almost  entirely  cosmic,  man  is  removed 
from  man,  and  is  considered  only  in  reference 
to  the  gods,  the  fairies,  or  whatever  it  is  that 
represents  the  whole.  A  poet  must  have  his 
head  in  the  clouds,  but  his  feet  must  be  touch- 
ing on  Mother  Earth.  The  feet  of  both  Dim- 
sany  and  Yeats  are  often  striding  through  the 
skies  where  mortals  cannot  follow.  This  is 
much  less  true  of  Dunsany,  who  achieves  a  far 
better  balance  in  his  work  than  Yeats,  but  it  is 
sufficiently  true  of  them  both  to  be  defined  as 
a  limitation.  Synge,  with  his  both  feet  hard 
on  the  ground,  thrust  his  head  for  a  moment 
through  the  upper  air  and  in  that  instant 
achieved  immortality. 

In  style,  which  is  to  say  beauty  and  clarity  of 
expression,  there  cannot  be  much  doubt  but 

19 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

that  Dunsany  stands  alone.  Since  William 
Morris  no  such  English  has  been  written.  It 
is  in  this  regard  that  Yeats  becomes  obscure, 
and  Synge  occasionally  colloquial.  Moore  in 
speaking  of  Yeats  remarks  that  "he  attempted 
a  joke,  but  it  got  lost  in  the  folds  of  his  style.'* 
Unfortunately  too  many  of  his  ideas  have  been 
lost  in  that  same  manner.  His  style  is  rich, 
but  it  is  rarely  clear;  whereas  with  Synge,  his 
style  is  clear,  but  it  is  not  always  rich.  But 
with  Dunsany,  his  style  is  both  rich  and  clear 
beyond  desire.  There  is  nothing  that  he  can-' 
not  say,  and  in  the  saying  make  more  beautiful; 
or  more  dramatic  than  can  another.  His  great- 
est thoughts  as  well  as  his  smallest  are  all 
expressed  so  simply,  and  yet  so  exquisitely  that 
a  child  can  understand  and  feel  the  sheer  beauty. 
There  is  a  music,  and  a  magic  harmony  in  his 
lines  that  no  other  living  writer  can  imitate. 
From  a  dramatic  standpoint  Synge  and 
Dunsany  are  very  fairly  matched.  Yeats  is 
so  much  less  a  dramatist  than  a  poet  that  it  is 
difficult  to  consider  him  in  this  connection. 
Through  the  work  of  both  Synge  and  Dunsany 
one  finds  errors  of  dramaturgy  side  by  side 
with  magnificent  examples  of  perfect  structure. 
20 


THE    MAN 


It  is  probable  that  "The  Riders  to  the  Sea", 
masterpiece  though  it  is,  would  have  been  better 
in  two  acts  than  in  one,  and  it  is  certain  that 
''King  Argimenes  and  the  Unknown  Warrior" 
would  have  been  a  better  play  in  three  acts 
than  in  two.  On  the  other  hand,  "The  Shadow 
of  the  Glen"  and  "A  Night  at  an  Inn"  are  well- 
nigh  perfect  one  act  plays  so  far  as  construction 
is  concerned.  They  might  well  stand  by  them- 
selves as  a  criterion  of  excellence. 

For  some  time  past  it  would  be  fair  to  say 
that  the  point  of  view  of  the  literary  artist 
was  entirely  microcosmic,  and  that  is  one  rea- 
son why  we  hail  Dunsany  with  such  a  sense  of 
relief,  even  of  quiet  and  of  gratitude.  Yeats 
too  has  attempted  to  bring  us  closer  to  the  great 
heart  of  things,  but  his  fairies  and  heroes  are 
of  local  origin,  while  Dunsany's  gods  are  uni- 
versal if  they  are  anything.  This  was  the  im- 
mense advantage  Dunsany  achieved  in  creating 
his  own  mythology ;  he  was  not  bound  by  place 
or  time,  and  the  only  associations  his  characters 
have  are  those  of  the  infinite.  His  expression 
is  universal  in  the  broadest  sense,  and  upon 
the  theory  of  universality  is  founded  the  philos- 
ophy of  art.    Man  becomes  tired  of  himself, 

21 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

and  fatigued  with  his  fellows,  and  when  this 
time  comes  his  only  peace  is  to  be  found  in  his 
relation  to  the  infinite.  A  part  becomes  sated 
with  itself  or  with  another  part,  but  upon  the 
whole  it  may  feed  eternally.  But  I  fear  that 
in  my  own  desire  to  clarify  I  have  only  confused, 
and  that  from  the  philosophy  upon  which  art 
is  founded  I  have  wandered  almost  into  meta- 
physics, so  faint  is  the  dividing  line  between 
them.  It  is  only  a  critic  who  is  so  foolish  as 
to  try  to  explain  the  beautiful  or  to  think  that 
it  can  need  explanation. 


22 


II 

His  Work 

It  will  be  well  now  to  take  each  of  Lord  Dun- 
sany's  plays  in  turn  and  see  what  may  be  gained 
by  a  brief  analysis  of  its  structure  and  of  its 
meaning,  and  in  so  doing  let  us  take  them  chron- 
ologically, for  to  list  them  at  once  in  the  order 
of  their  importance  would  be  to  anticipate  the 
work  at  hand. 

THE  GLITTERING  GATE 

The  scene  is  a  Lonely  Place,  and  the  time  the 
Present. 

The  Lonely  Place  is  strewn  with  large  black  rocks  and 
uncorked  heer-bottles,  the  latter  in  great  profusion.  At 
back  is  a  wall  of  granite  built  of  great  slabs  and  in  it  the 
Gate  of  Heaven.     The  door  is  of  gold. 

Below  the  Lonely  Place  is  an  abyss  hung  with  stars. 

The  two  characters  of  the  piece  are  Jim, 
lately  a  burglar,  for  he  is  dead,  and  Bill,  likewise 
deceased,  who  was  a  pal  of  Jim's  on   earth. 

23 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

Jim  was  hanged  and  Bill  was  shot,  and  the 
marks  of  their  recent  ordeal  are  still  upon  them. 
Jim  has  been  dead  the  longer,  so  that  he  is 
there  first.  Bill  finds  him  imcorking  empty 
beer  bottles  endlessly  and  throwing  them  away, 
as  he  enters  and  knocks  on  the  Gate  of  Heaven. 
Each  time  that  Jim  finds  himself  deceived  by 
the  empty  bottles  faint  and  unpleasant  laughter 
is  heard  from  somewhere  in  the  great  void. 
Bill  recalls  to  Jim  the  little  things  of  their  life 
together  and  gradually  Jim  remembers.  Find- 
ing the  great  door  immovable  before  him  Bill 
recollects  that  he  has  still  with  him  his  old 
jemmy,  "nut-cracker",  so  with  it  he  tries  to 
drill  open  the  huge  Gate  of  Heaven.  Jim 
takes  little  interest  in  the  endeavor  until  sud- 
denly the  door  begins  to  yield.  Then  they  both 
give  themselves  up  to  imagining  all  the  wonders 
that  will  confront  them  on  the  other  side  of  the 
closed  door.  Bill  is  sure  that  his  mother  will 
be  there,  and  Jim  thinks  of  a  yellow-haired  girl 
whom  he  remembers  as  a  bar-maid  at  Wimble- 
don. Of  a  sudden  the  drill  goes  through  and 
the  great  door  swings  slowly  open,  and  —  there 
is  nothing  there  but  the  great  blue  void,  hung 
with  twinkling  stars. 
24 


HIS    WORK 


Bill,  (staggering  and  gazing  into  the  revealed  Noth- 
ing, in  which  far  stars  go  wandering)  Stars.  Blooming 
great  stars.    There  ain't  no  heaven,  Jim. 

{Ever  since  the  revelation  a  cruel  and  violent  laugh 
has  arisen  off.  It  increases  in  volume  and  grows  louder 
and  louder.) 

Jim.  That's  like  them.  That's  very  like  them. 
Yes,  they'd  do  that ! 

{The  curtain  falls  and  the  laughter  still  howls  on.) 

This  play  has  been  pointed  out  as  a  bit  of 
rare  cynicism  on  the  part  of  Lord  Dunsany, 
but  I  am  inchned  to  think  that  this  opinion  is 
im justified.  What  he  has  done  is  simply  that 
which  he  never  tires  of  doing,  of  showing  man 
in  his  eternal  conflict  with  the  gods.  The  Gate 
of  Heaven  cannot  be  forced  open  with  a  jemmy, 
or  if  it  is  there  will  be  found  nothing  on  the 
other  side.  Bill  and  Jim  are  both  materialists, 
and  having  broken  both  the  law  of  God  and 
man  all  their  lives,  it  is  thoroughly  in  keeping 
that  after  death  they  should  adhere  to  their 
old  beliefs,  that  there  is  nothing  too  strong  or 
too  sacred  to  be  forced  to  serve  their  turn. 
Not  to  try  to  force  the  door  would  be  wholly 
out  of  character  for  them,  but  to  force  it  and 
to  find  heaven  on  the  other  side  would  violate 
our  sense  of  the  eternal  fitness  of  things.     Sur- 

25 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

rounded  by  empty  beer-bottles,  fitting  symbols 
of  their  material  life,  and  hoimded  by  the 
mocking  laugh  of  Nemesis,  Bill  and  Jim  can 
only  vent  their  spleen  in  a  last  bitter  outcry 
against  the  eternal.  The  old  and  endless  bal- 
ance of  things  is  achieved,  and  the  law  is  ac- 
complished. 

The  play  is  open  to  several  interpretations 
and  therein  lies  its  greatest  weakness.  The 
issue  is  not  clearly  defined  and  it  is  only  in  the 
light  of  Dunsany's  other  work  that  we  are 
able  to  attempt  a  logical  elucidation.  A  mythol- 
ogy such  as  Dunsany's  presupposes  a  certain 
element  of  fatalism  when  man  comes  in  contact 
with  the  cosmic  force.  It  must  be  remembered 
too  that  Dunsany  is  a  great  imaginative  genius, 
—  have  I  not  deplored  his  lack  of  interest  in 
man  as  related  to  man  ?  —  and  that  imagina- 
tion is  a  wholly  mental  quality.  Any  emotion 
we  get  from  Dunsany  is  not  one  based  on  human 
attributes ;  for  the  most  part  it  is  purely  aesthetic, 
a  rapture  at  the  beauty  of  his  conceptions,  and 
at  his  manner  of  expression,  or  a  terror  at  the 
immensity  and  grandeur  of  what  he  shows  us. 
Herein  he  is  at  one  with  the  Greek  dramatists, 
and  this  attitude  on  his  part  has  been  laid 
26 


^ 


HIS   WORK 


down  by  Aristotle  as  a  law  of  tragedy  centuries 
ago.  That  is  why  we  find  so  little  human 
sympathy  shown  in  his  treatment  of  Bill  and 
Jim.  How  easy  it  would  have  been  to  have 
made  this  play  a  maudlin  diatribe!  But 
Dunsany's  point  of  view  on  the  problem  is 
purely  dispassionate,  entirely  that  of  an  artist 
—  and  an  aristocrat!  And  after  all  the  little 
play  must  not  be  taken  too  seriously.  It 
has  a  story  to  tell,  and  with  Dunsany  the  story 
is  paramoimt  always.  There  is  no  need  to 
attempt  to  read  in  a  hidden  meaning.  Yeats 
might  have  written  the  play  and  if  he  had  done 
so  we  should  doubtless  have  had  a  second 
version  of  "The  Hour  Glass"  or  something 
closely  akin  to  it.  Indeed  the  influence  of 
Yeats  on  this  first  play  of  Dunsany's  is  not  to 
be  ignored. 

Dramatically  ''The  Glittering  Gate"  leaves 
much  to  be  desired.  It  most  certainly  furnishes 
an  excellent  example  of  the  law  of  surprise, 
and  it  even  provides  suspense,  a  much  more 
vital  element,  and  one  which  is  not  always  to 
be  found  in  Dunsany's  plays.  How  often  it 
has  been  said  that  a  dramatist  must  not  keep 
anything  from  his  audience!    A  genius  may 

27 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

do  all  things,  and  as  a  rule  Dunsany  prepares 
us  for  his  surprise  so  effectively  that  in  the  very 
preparation  an  element  of  suspense  is  created. 
It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  Dunsany  here 
avoids  an  error  which  marks  a  weak  spot  in  two 
of  his  later  and  bigger  plays;  that  is,  he  does 
not  attempt  to  bring  the  gods  on  the  stage. 
The  mocking  laughter  is  much  more  mysterious 
and  terrible  when  its  source  in  imknown. 

The  dialogue  is  excellent.  The  language 
that  the  two  dead  burglars  use  is  perfectly 
natural  and  in  character,  albeit  the  situation 
is  grotesque.  This  very  incongruity  is  highly 
dramatic  in  itself.  Through  the  dialogue,  too, 
runs  a  vein  of  gentle  irony,  as  there  does  through 
every  Dunsany  play.  Each  character  is  devel- 
oped along  individual  lines.  Jim  is  frankly  a 
cynic ;  Bill  is  more  trusting  — but  Jim  has  been 
dead  the  longer. 

In  denouement  the  play  is  masterly.  The 
climax  is  led  up  to  without  hesitation  and  when 
the  moment  comes  the  blow  is  struck  with 
deadly  accuracy.  Then  the  play  is  over.  No 
further  time  is  wasted  in  "past  regrets  or  future 
fears."  It  is  not  a  very  good  play  on  the  whole, 
but  considering  the  circumstances  under  which 
28 


Photo  by  White  Studio.    Courtesy  of  Neighborhood  Playhouse, 

The  Glittering  Gate 
The  gate  opens  —  and  there  is  nothing  there 


HIS   WORK 


it  was  written  it  is  beyond  question  an  extra- 
ordinary play.  I  think  it  is  a  better  play 
than  "  The  Queen's  Enemies  '\  which  was  written 
much  later  and  which  was  successful  in  produc- 
tion. But  "The  Glittering  Gate"  will  remain 
always  one  of  the  least  popular  of  Dunsany's 
plays,  for  while  the  dialogue,  the  humor,  the 
characterization,  the  denouement  are  all  done 
well  and  with  infinite  finish,  the  purpose  of 
the  play  is  undoubtedly  vague,  and  no  matter 
how  capable  it  is  of  elucidation  its  lack  of  clar- 
ity detracts  from  the  force  of  the  piece.  It 
could  not  be  otherwise.  The  play  depends  on 
the  situation  and  upon  the  dialogue  to  hold 
the  interest  of  the  audience ;  there  is  no  actual 
opposition  to  the  characters,  none  of  the  immedi- 
ate and  personal  conflict  for  which  the  modem 
audience  has  been  taught  to  look.  To  some 
people  this  will  always  be  a  lack  in  Dunsany's 
plays,  but  they  could  not  have  been  written 
in  any  other  way  and  written  as  well.  The 
impotency  of  man  is  much  more  strongly  shown 
when  he  is  placed  in  conflict  with  a  gigantic 
indefinable  force;  as  soon  as  that  force  suffers 
embodiment,  it  is  brought  down  to  man's  level, 
and  the  whole  conception  is  destroyed. 

29 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

"The  Glittering  Gate"  stages  well,  and  acts 
well;  it  is  very  short  even  for  a  one-act  play, 
but  its  lack  of  definitiveness  keeps  it  from  being 
classed  with  the  later  and  more  forceful  work 
of  the  author.  None  of  Dunsany's  plays  could 
be  described  as  robust;  they  are  too  delicate, 
and  too  full  of  finesse  for  that,  but  "The  Glitter- 
ing Gate"  is  not  even  vital.  And  notwith- 
standing all  that,  it  is  a  most  extraordinary  play. 

KING  ARGIMENES  AND  THE  UNKNOWN  WARRIOR 

The  action  opens  in  the  slave  fields  of  King 
Damiak,  where  King  Argimenes,  a  deposed  and 
captured  monarch,  is  working  with  the  slaves. 
King  Argimenes  has  just  finished  the  bone  he 
was  gnawing  and  laments  that  he  has  nothing 
more  to  hope  for.  Zarb,  a  slave,  envies  him 
his  beautiful  memories,  for  he  himself  can  recall 
nothing  better  than  the  fact  that  he  once  went 
for  a  full  year  without  beatings.  He  tells 
Argimenes  too  that  the  King's  great  dog  is  ill 
and  that  they  may  soon  have  more  bones. 
Argimenes  left  alone  goes  on  digging,  until  of  a 
sudden  he  comes  on  a  great  bronze  sword  left 
there  long  ago  by  some  unknown  warrior. 
30 


HIS   WORK 


He  offers  a  prayer  to  the  spirit  of  the  departed, 
and  conspires  with  Zarb  to  rebel  against  King 
Damiak.  Zarb  tells  him  that  now  he  has  a 
sword,  and  such  a  sword,  the  slaves  will 
believe  he  is  a  King  and  will  follow  him.  Ar- 
gimenes  creeps  off  to  where  the  slave-guard  are 
seated  with  their  backs  to  the  diggers,  intending 
to  kill  the  guard  and  arm  the  slaves.  As  the 
curtain  falls  one  sees  the  slaves  all  huddled 
together  watching  Argimenes  stalk  the  slave- 
guard,  and  at  the  very  last  a  great  gasp  of 
wonder  goes  up  from  them.  This  scene  is 
very  remarkable.  From  the  time  when  Ar- 
gimenes makes  his  intention  apparent  to  Zarb, 
to  the  fall  of  the  curtain  the  action  off  stage  is 
as  clearly  shown  as  that  before  the  audience. 
Argimenes  creeping  through  the  sand  hills, 
and  then  showing  himself  on  the  horizon  line 
as  he  plunges  downward  to  the  attack  is  as 
clear  before  us  as  the  slaves  themselves  as  they 
watch  and  listen  in  awe  and  agony. 

The  second  act  is  in  the  throne-room  of  King 
Damiak.  The  King  is  seated  in  all  his  glory 
on  his  throne  with  his  four  lovely  Queens  beside 
him.  On  his  right  is  his  idol,  Illuriel,  with  an 
idol-guard  in  front  of  him.    The  King's  Over- 

31 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

seer  brings  plans  for  a  new  garden,  and  they  are 
discussed  by  the  King  and  Queens.  A  hill 
must  be  removed,  terraces  made,  and  the  slaves 
must  be  flogged  that  the  work  be  accomplished 
more  quickly.  Power  and  selfishness  are  very 
clearly  and  amusingly  depicted.  Then  a  Prophet 
comes  in  to  prophesy,  and  the  Queens  com- 
ment caustically  on  the  cut  of  his  hair  while 
the  King  converses  aside.  The  Prophet  warns 
them  of  the  approaching  doom,  of  an  enemy 
within  the  gates,  but  there  is  no  one  to  give 
him  heed.  When  he  stops,  the  King  in  a  bored 
tone,  and  without  listening  to  him,  bids  him 
continue.  The  Prophet  goes  out  and  the  King 
and  the  Queens  go  to  the  banqueting  hall. 
The  idol-guard  ruminates  on  the  prophecies 
and  feels  a  sense  of  disquietude.  A  great 
noise  of  fighting  is  heard  without.  The  slaves 
rush  in  all  armed  and  overpower  the  idol-guard, 
throwing  down  Illuriel  and  breaking  him  in 
seven  pieces.  They  go  back  to  face  the  rem- 
nants of  the  palace  guard,  and  Damiak  rushes 
in  from  the  feast  to  find  his  idol  fallen  and  his 
throne  broken.  He  goes  back  in  an  effort  to 
flee,  for  he  knows  that  his  doom  is  upon  him. 
The  slaves  reenter  with  Argimenes  at  their 
32 


HIS    WORK 


head.  Argimenes  takes  his  place  on  the  throne, 
and  throws  a  cloth  of  gold  about  his  shoulders. 
He  looks  the  King  he  is  and  the  slaves  bow 
before  him  in  awe  and  wonder.  Suddenly  the 
Keeper  of  the  King's  Great  Dog  comes  to  say 
that  the  royal  beast  is  dead.  In  an  instant 
Argimenes  forgets  that  he  is  a  King  once  more 
and  with  a  cry  of  "Bones!"  he  rushes  forward, 
followed  by  the  slaves.  Then,  recollecting  him- 
self, he  returns  to  the  throne,  and  with  dignity 
commands  that  the  King's  Great  Dog  be 
buried.  "Majesty!"  cries  Zarb,  confounded 
"at  this  last  token  of  royalty.  And  so  the  cur- 
tain falls. 

It  is  unquestionable  that  the  first  act  of  this 
play  is  immeasurably  superior  to  the  second. 
The  first  has  a  unity,  a  directness,  and  a  force 
which  the  second  lacks,  breaking  as  it  does  into 
several  phases  of  action.  From  the  time  when 
King  Damiak  goes  with  his  Queens  into  the 
banqueting  hall  to  the  entrance  of  Argimenes 
and  the  slaves  there  is  a  momentary  interlude, 
and  just  here  the  act  breaks,  splitting  into 
two  sections.  In  the  last  half  of  the  act  the 
entrances  and  exits  are  not  carefully  arranged, 
and  altogether  the  effect  of  the  whole  is  to  give 

33 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

the  act  a  downward  slant  rather  than  the  up- 
ward one  that  it  should  have.  The  play  "falls 
off"  at  the  conclusion.  This  is  all  due  simply 
and  solely  to  faulty  construction.  This  was 
the  first  play  Dunsany  attempted  in  more  than 
one  act,  and  hence  it  must  be  regarded  some- 
what as  in  the  nature  of  an  experiment.  Prob- 
ably the  play  would  have  been  better  written 
in  three  acts  instead  of  in  two.  The  first  act 
in  that  case  would  show  King  Darniak  on  his 
throne  with  the  Queens  and  the  Prophet;  in 
short  it  would  contain  the  material  now  used 
in  the  first  part  of  act  two.  The  second  act 
would  be  the  present  act  one  just  as  it  now 
stands;  and  act  three  would  be  composed  of 
what  is  now  contained  in  the  second  portion  of 
act  two.  Thus  we  would  see  the  splendour  of 
Darniak  on  his  throne,  hear  the  prophecy,  and 
mark  his  inattention  to  it,  after  which  we  would 
get  the  contrast  of  Argimenes  in  the  slave- 
fields,  followed  by  the  revolt,  and  the  over- 
throw of  Darniak.  This  revolt  would  follow 
immediately  and  logically  upon  Argimenes' 
slaughter  of  the  slave-guard  in  act  two.  There 
is  little  question  in  my  mind  but  that  this  is 
the  proper  construction  for  the  play. 
34 


HIS   WORK 


It  may  be  well  to  take  up  here  a  question 
which  has  arisen  concerning  the  acts  or  scenes 
of  the  Dunsany  plays.  When  William  A. 
Brady  produced  ''The  Gods  of  the  Mountain" 
in  America  he  called  it  upon  the  programme 
*'A  One  Act  Play  in  Three  Scenes",  whereas 
Dunsany  himself  calls  his  divisions,  acts.  When 
''King  Argimenes  and  the  Unknown  Warrior" 
and  "The  Gods  of  the  Mountain"  were  pro- 
duced by  Stuart  Walker  in  his  Portmanteau 
Theater  he  had  no  hesitation  in  using  the  term 
"acts."  But  of  late  the  point  has  again  arisen 
so  that  it  seems  desirable  that  we  pause  long 
enough  to  investigate  the  matter  more  deeply. 

A  play  is  a  series  of  minor  climaxes  leading 
to  major  climaxes  which  in  turn  lead  to  an 
ultimate  climax.  A  one-act  play  is  a  series 
of  minor  climaxes  leading  to  one  major  climax 
which  is  in  itself  the  ultimate  climax.  A 
three-act  play  has  the  major  climaxes  near  the 
end  of  each  act,  and  the  ultimate  climax  near 
the  end  of  the  second  act  or  during  the  third. 
A  four  or  five  act  play  is  susceptible  to  the 
same  course  of  reasoning.  I  fear  that  my 
phraseology  is  somewhat  involved,  but  I  have 
striven  to  be  exact. 

35 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

Let  us  try  this  dictum  on  ''King  Argimenes 
and  the  Unknown  Warrior"  and  see  whether  or 
not  it  will  stand  the  pragmatic  test.  Be  it  under- 
stood that  these  major  climaxes  are  as  a  rule 
placed  at  such  points  in  the  action  as  will 
tend  to  divide  the  play  conveniently.  This 
is  merely  a  convention  of  the  dramatic  art. 
Dunsany's  acts  are  shorter  than  is  customary, 
but  that  does  not  invalidate  their  claim  to  be 
called  acts  in  the  least,  for  acting  time  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  question,  except  as 
it  might  tend  to  produce  lack  of  balance 
and  unity.  Broadly  speaking  acts  are  nat- 
ural divisions  produced  by  emotional  or  in- 
tellectual climaxes. 

In  the  first  act  of  the  play  under  immediate 
discussion  the  minor  climaxes  are  the  finding 
of  the  sword,  and  the  coming  of  the  Overseer, 
both  leading  to  the  major  climax,  the  "Oh" 
which  the  slaves  give  as  Argimenes  slays  the 
guard.  In  the  second  act  the  Overseer,  the 
Prophet,  the  entrance  of  Argimenes,  the  destruc- 
tion of  Illuriel,  the  reentrance  of  the  Overseer, 
the  incident  of  the  King's  Great  Dog  with  the 
cry  of  "Bones !"  all  lead  to  the  ultimate  climax, 
where  Argimenes  orders  that  the  dog  be  buried 
36 


HIS   WORK 


and  Zarb  cries  "Majesty!"  Note  by  the  way 
that  the  printed  version  of  the  play  makes 
Zarb  deliver  this  last  speech  in  a  tone  of  protest, 
when  in  reality,  as  Dunsany  himself  points  out, 
his  tone  should  show  awe.  The  major  climax 
at  the  end  of  act  one  leads  direct  to  the  ultimate 
climax  at  the  end  of  act  two  just  as  I  said 
it  would.  "King  Argimenes  and  the  Unknown 
Warrior"  is  not  as  good  an  example  as  "The 
Gods  of  the  Mountain"  simply  because  the 
second  is  by  far  the  better  play.  The  working 
out  of  the  rule  I  have  suggested  is  perfectly 
plain  in  them  both,  however.  There  can  be 
no  question  whether  or  not  these  plays  are 
written  in  acts  or  scenes.  "The  Gods  of  the 
Mountain"  is  as  unmistakably  a  three-act  play 
as  "The  Amazons."  But  before  discontinuing 
the  discussion  let  me  append  a  note  to  something 
I  said  a  little  while  back.  I  remarked  that  acts 
are  natural  divisions  produced  by  emotional  or 
intellectual  climaxes,  but  if  such  climaxes  come 
at  points  where  an  interval  would  be  incon- 
venient or  detrimental  to  the  balance  of  the  play 
then  the  necessary  divisions  must  be  arbitrarily 
imposed. 
The  slave  song,  the  chant  of  the  low  bom 

37 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

in  the  first  act  of  "King  Argimenes"  and  the 
wine  song  or  the  chant  of  the  nobles  in  the 
second  act  are  both  interesting.  ^Tien  the 
play  was  first  given  at  the  Abbey  Theater  one 
of  the  old  songs  of  famine  time  was  used  for 
the  chant  of  the  low  bom,  and  most  effectively. 
It  is  immensely  typical  of  Dimsany  to  have 
these  two  songs  balancing  each  other,  and 
presenting  so  forceful  a  contrast.  The  play 
begins  and  ends  with  the  thought  of  bones 
uppermost,  and  this  gives  a  certain  sense  of 
imity  in  contra-distinction  to  the  otherwise 
faulty  structure.  In  Argimenes  there  is  a 
superficial  resemblance  to  Agmar  in  "  The  Gods 
of  the  Mountain",  and  in  Zarb  there  is  a  faint 
prophecy  of  Slag  in  the  same  play.  This  does 
not  argue  by  any  means  that  Dunsany's  charac- 
ters are  all  types,  but  it  indicates  how  his  char- 
acters developed,  one  growing  out  of  another. 

This  play  should  dispose  finally  of  any  theory 
that  Dunsany  develops  his  plot  at  the  expense 
of  his  characters.  See  how  Argimenes,  fallen 
almost  to  an  animal,  regains  his  individuality 
under  the  influence  of  the  sword,  and  how  the 
slaves,  from  being  mere  whipped  curs,  rise  to 
the  point  of  revolt  under  the  leadership  of 
38 


HIS    WORK 


Argimenes.  Observe  the  study  of  meanness 
and  selfishness  in  the  scene  of  Damiak,  the 
Queens,  and  the  Overseer,  and  the  blind  igno- 
rance depicted  in  the  following  scene  with  the 
Prophet.  Here  is  a  social  study  for  us  if  we 
care  to  heed  it.  And  then  the  reversion  to 
habit  in  Argimenes  when  he  hears  that  the 
King's  Great  Dog  is  dead,  and  his  cry  of 
''Bones!",  with  the  awe  and  wonder  of  the 
slaves  at  the  reinstated  monarch.  It  is  a  most 
excellent  bit  of  character  work  on  rather  broad 
lines.  As  might  be  expected  the  gods  have 
their  share  in  the  proceedings,  and  the  fact 
that  the  god  of  Argimenes  was  only  broken  in 
three  pieces  while  that  of  Damiak,  Illuriel, 
was  broken  in  seven,  is  made  to  serve  as  a 
partial  raison  d'etre  for  the  action.  The  last 
act  furnishes  a  splendid  example  of  peripetia 
in  the  fall  of  Damiak,  and  the  victory  of  Ar- 
gimenes. 

"  King  Argimenes  and  the  Unknown  Warrior" 
is  almost  a  good  play.  It  presents  a  problem 
of  man  as  opposed  to  man  as  most  of  the  other 
Dunsany  plays  do  not,  and  in  consequence  of 
this  the  conception  is  much  less  poetic,  with 
none  of  the  grandeur  of  some  of  the  other  plays. 

39 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

On  the  other  hand,  the  fact  that  we  are  dealing 
with  purely  human  elements  permits  more 
visible  opposition  and  direct  conflict,  and  for 
this  reason  one  occasionally  hears  the  play 
placed  much  higher  in  the  scale  than  it  deserves 
to  be.  In  its  characterization,  its  dialogue, 
its  flashes  of  poetry  and  of  wit,  the  play  is  well 
worth  serious  consideration,  but  in  its  concep- 
tion, and  in  the  faulty  construction  of  its  frame- 
work it  falls  far  below  the  standard  set  by  the 
major  portion  of  Dunsany's  work. 

THE  GODS  OF  THE  MOUNTAIN 

The  first  act  is  outside  the  wall  of  the  city 
of  Kongros.  In  the  dust  three  beggars  are 
seated  who  lament  their  poverty  and  that  the 
"divine  benevolence"  of  man  is  not  what  it 
used  to  be.  To  the  three  comes  Agmar  fol- 
lowed by  his  servant.  Slag.  Agmar  is  a  very 
great  beggar.  The  story  of  his  adventures  is 
told  by  Slag,  and  a  practical  demonstration 
of  his  cleverness  is  given  as  some  citizens  pass. 
The  other  beggars  all  fail  to  receive  alms,  but 
Agmar  by  his  pitiful  aspect  and  deep  groans 
moves  the  passers-by  to  compassion.  A  scheme 
40 


HIS   WORK 


must  be  devised  to  retrieve  their  fallen  fortunes. 
Oogno  suggests  that  they  enter  the  city  as 
ambassadors  from  a  far  country,  and  UK  seizes 
upon  this  with  enthusiasm.  Slag,  however, 
says  that  they  do  not  know  his  master,  and 
that  now  they  have  suggested  they  go  as  am- 
bassadors he  will  suggest  that  they  go  as  kings. 
Agmar,  who  has  been  thinking,  betters  even 
this  and  says  that  they  will  go  as  gods.  He 
tells  of  the  seven  green  jade  idols  seated  on  the 
mountain  of  Marma  a  few  days'  ride  from  the 
city.  Those  gods  are  very  potent  here,  and 
the  beggars  shall  impersonate  them.  Agmar 
sends  for  a  Thief,  and  tells  him  to  fetch  some 
green  raiment,  and  he  sends  also  for  another 
beggar  to  make  up  the  quota  of  seven.  The 
green  raiment  comes,  and  Agmar  distributes 
it  among  the  seven,  telling  them  to  disguise 
themselves.  The  conclusion  of  this  act  is 
particularly  fine,  presenting  as  it  does  a  splendid 
climax  to  the  action,  and  a  most  enlightening 
bit  of  pure  characterization. 

Ulf.    We  will  each  wear  a  piece  of  it  over  our  rags. 
Oogno.    Yes,  yes,  we  shall  look  fine. 
Agmar.    That  is  not  the  way  that  we  shall  disguise 
ourselves. 

41 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

OoGNO.     Not  cover  our  rags? 

Agmar.  No,  no.  The  first  who  looked  closely 
would  say,  "These  are  only  beggars.  They  have  dis- 
guised themselves." 

Ulf.    What  shall  we  do? 

Agmar.  Each  of  the  seven  shall  wear  a  piece  of 
the  green  raiment  underneath  his  rags.  And  perad- 
venture  here  and  there  a  little  shall  show  through; 
and  men  shall  say,  "These  seven  have  disguised  them- 
selves as  beggars.     But  we  know  not  what  they  be ! " 

Slag.    Hear  my  wise  master. 

OoGNO.     (in  admiration)  He'isa.  beggar. 

Ulf.    He  is  an  old  beggar. 

It  is  Ulf  who  voices  a  fear  that  what  they  are 
to  do  may  be  regarded  as  an  impious  act,  but 
Agmar  quiets  him.  The  curtain  falls  on  the 
last  speech  given  above. 

Act  two  is  in  the  Metropolitan  Hall  of  the 
City  of  Kongros.  The  beggars  are  seated  in  a 
circle  and  the  citizens  are  questioning  them. 
Agmar  with  the  aid  of  Slag  succeeds  in  deceiving 
them  into  a  half-hearted  belief  that  the  beggars 
are  the  gods.  When  doubt  is  raised  Agmar  so 
frightens  the  citizens  that  meats  are  brought 
as  a  sacrifice.  All  the  beggars  except  Agmar 
eat  himgrily.  To  the  citizens  they  eat  like 
hungry  men,  but  when  they  see  that  Agmar 
abstains  they  wonder.  Agmar  says  that  he, 
42 


HIS    WORK 


the  eldest  of  the  gods,  never  eats,  leaving  that 
to  the  younger  gods  who  have  learned  the 
bestial  habit  from  the  lions.  And  again  he 
intimidates  the  citizens.  Woldery  wine  is 
brought  as  a  final  test,  and  Agmar  taking  the 
bowl  pours  the  wine  on  the  ground.  The  citi- 
zens are  amazed  not  so  much  by  what  the  man 
does,  but  by  his  dignity  and  the  manner  of  the 
doing.  Through  his  very  acting  of  the  part, 
he  is  growing  godlike.  The  citizens  retire 
and  Agmar  eats,  posting  Slag  at  the  door  as 
sentinel.  One  comes  nmning  and  demands 
the  god  who  will  not  eat.  The  following  scene, 
the  concluding  one  of  the  act,  is  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  in  dramatic  literature. 


One.  Master,  my  child  was  bitten  in  the  throat 
by  a  death-adder  at  noon.  Spare  him,  master;  he 
still  breathes,  but  slowly. 

Agmar.     Is  he  indeed  your  child  ? 

One.     He  is  surely  my  child,  master. 

Agmar.  Was  it  your  wont  to  thwart  him  in  his 
play,  while  he  was  well  and  strong? 

One.     I  never  thwarted  him,  master. 

Agmar.    Whose  child  is  Death? 

One.    Death  is  the  child  of  the  gods. 

Agmar.  Do  you  that  never  thwarted  your  child 
in  his  play  ask  this  of  the  gods? 

43 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

One.  {with  some  horror,  perceiving  Agmar's  mean- 
ing) Master! 

Agmar.  Weep  not.  For  all  the  houses  that  men 
have  builded  are  the  play-fields  of  this  child  of  the 
gods. 

{The  Man  goes  away  in  silence,  not  weeping.) 

OoGNO.  {taking  Thahn  hy  the  wrist)  Is  this  indeed 
a  man? 

Agmar.  A  man,  a  man,  and  until  just  now  a  hun- 
gry one. 

Is  not  this  scene  beautifully  builded?  As 
Agmar  talks  he  gradually  assumes  the  aspect 
of  a  god,  for  his  imagination  reacts  upon  him 
until  he  seems  to  shake  off  his  earthly  guise. 
Then  on  the  departure  of  the  Man  —  or  as  it  is 
usually  played  to  give  better  effect,  a  Woman 
—  he  slowly  recovers  himself  in  his  repetition 
of,  "A  man,  a  man  .  .  ."  bringing  himself  back 
to  earth  and  to  a  realization  of  his  position. 
Agmar  is  but  a  leader  of  beggars;  he  would 
have  been  a  great  prophet,  a  captain,  and  a 
leader  of  men  but  for  one  thing.  He  is  wholly 
lacking  in  that  spiritual  quality  which  prompts 
Ulf  to  voice  his  fear  that  the  gods  will  be  angry 
at  their  impersonation.  Agmar  is  a  mental 
giant,  an  imaginative  genius,  but  this  great 
void  in  his  nature  is  to  undo  him. 
44 


HIS    WORK 


In  the  third  act  the  beggars  are  seated  on 
seven  thrones  rough  hewn  from  rock  set  up 
in  the  same  hall  that  they  first  entered.  For 
the  most  part  they  reek  with  self-satisfaction. 
Mian  and  Oogno,  who  represent  the  physical 
element,  are  in  a  voluptuous  reverie  over  the 
wines  they  have  drunk  and  meats  they  have 
eaten.  They  laugh  at  the  people  who  come 
to  worship  them,  sneering  at  their  credulity. 
Agmar  rebukes  them,  saying  that  when  they  were 
beggars  they  behaved  as  beggars,  but  now  that 
they  are  gods  they  must  behave  as  gods.  Agmar 
by  sheer  imaginative  power  seems  to  deify 
himself  above  the  others.  The  Thief  who  has 
been  absent  among  his  calling,  but  unknown 
to  them,  rushes  in  and  cries  that  they  are  lost, 
that  three  days  ago  two  dromedary  men  were 
sent  to  Marma  to  see  whether  the  gods  were 
still  there.  There  is  instant  panic.  Agmar 
fights  for  time,  and  tries  to  devise  a  plan.  The 
citizens  enter  and  announce  the  two  Dromedary 
Men.  Agmar  warns  them  that  their  doubting 
will  bring  a  heavy  doom  upon  them  and  ad- 
vises them  to  desist.  They  refuse,  saying  that 
their  doubts  are  mighty.  The  Dromedary  Men 
are  ushered  in,  and  are  asked  whether  the  seven 

45 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

gods  are  still  seated  in  their  thrones  at  Marma. 
They  are  not  there !  Their  shrines  are  empty ! 
The  gods  are  indeed  come  from  Marma !  The 
citizens  are  reassured  and  retire  to  prepare  a 
feast  for  the  beggars  whom  they  now  believe 
to  be  the  true  gods  beyond  all  question.  The 
beggars  are  mad  with  joy.  They  are  saved. 
Only  Agmar  wonders.  Something  has  come 
to  pass  which  was  imforeseen  by  him.  He 
saw  the  seven  gods  there  at  Marma  as  he  passed 
by  not  long  ago.  He  cannot  understand.  He 
represents  the  wholly  mental  element  as  Oogno 
and  Mian  represent  the  physical,  and  now  some- 
thing has  happened  that  his  intelligence  cannot 
compass.  Ulf  tells  of  a  dream  he  has  had 
in  which  there  was  a  fear.  Ulf  is  the  only 
one  who  is  susceptible  to  spiritual  instincts; 
he  may  be  said  to  be  the  prophet  of  the  gods. 
Suddenly  a  frightened  man  runs  in  and  throws 
himself  down  before  them.  He  implores  them 
not  to  walk  at  night  around  the  city,  and  he 
describes  how  they  appeared  to  him  and  to 
others  —  all  green,  and  blind,  and  groping. 
The  beggars  cannot  understand,  but  they  begin 
to  wonder.  Agmar  now  feels  his  grasp  on  the 
situation  slipping  from  him.  He  feels  the 
46 


HIS   WORK 


presence  of  some  force  which  is  superior  to 
him  —  and  he  fears.  In  spite  of  this  he  re- 
assures the  man  and  sends  him  away,  but  when 
the  other  beggars  ask  for  explanations  he  can- 
not give  them.  There  is  the  sound  of  a  heavy, 
measured  tread  approaching.  Can  it  be  the 
dancing  girls  who  walk  so  slowly  and  with 
such  an  ominous  sound?  Ulf  springs  to  his 
feet  and  permits  his  fear  to  cry  aloud  —  they 
have  been  impious  and  retribution  will  over- 
take them.  His  fears  shall  cry  aloud  and  shall 
run  before  him  like  a  dog  out  of  the  city.  The 
great  steps  come  nearer.  Seven  huge  stone 
gods  enter,  and  despite  the  efforts  of  the  beggars 
to  escape  they  are  held  by  some  mysterious 
power  and  are  imable  to  resist. 

{The  leading  Green  Thing  points  his  finger  at  the 
lantern  —  the  flame  turns  green.  When  the  six  are 
seated  the  leader  points  one  by  one  at  each  of  the  seven 
beggars,  shooting  out  his  forefinger  at  them.  As  he  does 
this  each  beggar  in  his  turn  gathers  himself  back  on  to  his 
throne  and  crosses  his  legs,  his  right  arm  goes  stiffly  up- 
ward with  forefinger  erect,  and  a  staring  look  of  horror 
comes  into  his  eyes.  In  this  attitude  the  beggars  sit 
motionless  while  a  green  light  falls  upon  their  faces. 
The  gods  go  out.) 

{Presently  enter  the  Citizens,  some  with  victuals  and 
fruit.    One  touches  a  beggar's  arm  and  then  another's.) 

47 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

Citizen.  They  are  cold;  they  have  turned  to 
stone. 

(All  abase  themselves,  foreheads  to  the  floor.) 

One.  We  have  doubted  them.  We  have  doubted 
them.  They  have  turned  to  stone  because  we  have 
doubted  them. 

Another.    They  were  the  true  gods. 

All.    They  were  the  true  gods. 

It  is  probable  that  there  has  never  been  a 
play  more  gigantic  than  this  in  conception. 
The  fatality  which  Dunsany  shares  with  the 
Greek  dramas  is  here  in  its  most  perfect  form. 
As  Mr.  Bjorkman  remarks,  "The  crime  of  hybris 
which  to  the  Greeks  was  the  * mif orgivable  sin' 
is  here  made  as  real  to  us  as  it  was  to  them.*' 
Five  of  the  beggars  are  purely  physical,  and 
they  are  shown  as  wholly  subservient  to  the 
great  intellect  of  Agmar ;  they  themselves  have 
nothing  of  the  mind  or  spirit;  they  care  for 
nothing  but  food,  and  wine,  and  dancing  girls. 
Agmar  is  another  Nietzsche ;  he  is  all  brain,  and 
his  limitations  are  those  of  the  fallible  human 
intelligence.  Ulf  is  a  prophet  of  the  spirit, 
but  his  mind  is  not  strong  enough  to  combat 
that  of  Agmar  even  though  his  instincts  rebel 
against  the  projected  imposition.  But  all 
through  the  play  his  forebodings  warn  us  of 
48 


HIS   WORK 


the  approaching  peril.  It  is  only  when  Agmar 
comes  in  contact  with  the  spiritual  essence,  the 
divine  force,  that  he  is  frustrated  and  ruined. 
Here  is  something  which  he  did  not  consider 
and  could  not  account  for.  That  which  is 
beyond  and  above  the  grasp  of  mere  mind  has 
crushed  him  with  an  ease  and  implacability 
which  he  could  never  foresee.  Throughout  the 
play  I  have  pointed  out  how  from  time  to  time 
Agmar  seemed  to  rise  almost  to  divine  heights, 
but  it  was  never  more  than  a  "seeming."  His 
divinity  was  a  matter  of  imagination,  and  of 
cold  logic;  it  never  rose  above  the  stratum  of 
the  mind.  Hence  when  he  is  at  the  last  con- 
fronted with  that  which  he  tried  to  imitate, 
his  whole  structure  is  shattered  in  an  instant. 
The  old  saw  that  "you  can  fool  a  man  with  a 
stuffed  dog,  but  you  can't  fool  a  dog"  is  very 
applicable  to  the  relation  between  the  citizens 
and  the  beggars.  Humanity  is  fallible;  only 
the  gods  are  onmipotent. 

By  the  foregoing  it  will  be  seen  that  I  have 
read  no  little  symbolism  into  "The  Gods  of 
the  Mountain."  It  is  not  only  permissible 
but  even  inevitable  that  this  should  be  so,  but 
still  I  feel  called  upon  to  defend  my  position 

49 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

in  the  face  of  Lord  Dunsany's  oft  repeated 
statement  that  his  plays  have  no  hidden  mean- 
ing. A  writer  is  often  wholly  unconscious  of 
what  lies  beneath  the  surface  of  his  work.  He 
may  tell  a  story  and  see  nothing  himself  but 
the  story,  and  yet  that  portion  of  him  which  is 
apart  from  his  objective  consciousness  may 
have  written  heavily  between  the  lines.  It  is 
here  that  one  must  step  in  to  interpret,  a  dan- 
gerous task  and  full  of  pitfalls,  striving  to  de- 
duce from  the  more  obvious  import  the  under- 
lying and  subconscious  motive.  "The  Gods 
of  the  Mountain"  taken  only  as  a  tale  fulfills 
its  purpose  splendidly,  but  it  is  quite  fair  to 
take  it  as  more  than  that,  provided  only  that 
in  our  effort  to  interpret  we  do  not  misconstrue. 
Several  of  Dunsany's  plays  are  distinctly  sym- 
bolic in  character,  but  the  symbolism  is  wholly 
unconscious,  and  therein  differs  from  the  delib- 
erate symbolism  of  one  such  as  Maeterlinck. 
With  Dunsany  the  symbolism  arises  from  the 
story;  with  Maeterlinck  the  story  arises  from 
the  symbolism.  It  is  simply  a  difference  in 
point  of  view,  but  this  difference  is  vital. 

From  a  standpoint  of  dramatic  technique 
the  play  is  almost  perfect.    The  plot  is  unified 
50 


HIS   WORK 


and  well  constructed,  unfolding  gradually  and 
smoothly.  The  character  development  is 
masterly,  rising  to  splendid  dramatic  heights. 
The  climaxes  are  quite  perfect  in  themselves, 
(the  final  scenes  of  acts  two  and  three  are  strokes 
of  pure  genius)  and  every  line  advances  the 
movement.  It  has  been  found  that  to  some 
act  two  has  too  little  definite  action,  and 
this  may  be  explained  by  saying  that  here 
again  we  are  confronted  with  the  difficulty  of 
providing  an  obvious  opposition  when  one  of 
the  contending  forces  is  an  abstract  element. 
The  criticism  is  entirely  captious,  however,  for  in 
act  two  the  character  development  is  keen  and 
vivid.  Hence  those  who  are  disposed  to  criti- 
cise the  play  on  these  grounds,  are  as  a  rule 
those  who  would  much  prefer  the  old  Drury 
Lane  melodrama  to  the  modern  and  more  ar- 
tistic play.  If  there  is  not  always  physical 
action  in  this  play  there  is  at  least  always  plot 
and  characterization,  which  is  a  much  better 
thing. 

There  is  just  one  error  in  "The  Gods  of  the 
Mountain",  and  this  is  an  error  which  is  re- 
peated in  another  of  the  Dunsany  plays,  namely, 
that  of  bringing  the  gods  themselves  on  the 

51 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

stage.  This  is  a  matter  of  applied  psychology, 
and  of  stage  mechanics.  One  can  imagine 
much  more  terrifying  things  than  one  can  con- 
struct. When  the  gods  are  merely  talked  of, 
when  they  are  only  heard,  and  when  their 
presence  is  but  suggested,  the  imagination  will 
conjure  up  a  picture  much  nearer  to  that  which 
the  artist  desires  to  convey  than  when  we 
actually  see  the  gods  in  person.  It  is  impossi- 
ble so  to  construct  them  as  to  present  a  really 
adequate  sense  of  illusion.  Gigantic  and  gro- 
tesque as  they  are  they  will  always  fall  far  short 
of  what  they  ought  to  be.  This  comes  of  try- 
ing directly  to  embody  an  abstract  force.  It 
cannot  be  done.  It  is  like  trying  to  bring  Truth 
or  Beauty  before  us;  it  is  impossible.  True 
we  can  symbolise  Truth  and  Beauty,  and  just 
here  we  are  provided  with  a  point  of  escape. 
The  gods  can  be  symbolised.  Very  well,  then, 
and  how  shall  such  symbols  be  manifested? 
When  the  Dunsany  gods  come  on  the  stage 
the  criticism  is  usually  that  though  they  are 
obviously  not  men  they  partake  too  greatly 
of  the  human  element.  The  only  way  to 
avoid  this  is  to  make  them  more  so;  that  is, 
to  make  them  more  like  Man  than  men  them- 
52 


HIS   WORK 


selves.  In  the  same  way  the  Venus  de  Milo 
is  more  like  Woman  than  the  average  female. 
They  must  not  be  something  different  because 
they  cannot  be  made  different  enough;  hence 
they  must  be  simply  the  same,  only  more  so! 
It  is  a  question  not  of  realization,  but  of  idealiza- 
tion. In  my  opinion  by  far  the  better  plan  would 
be  not  to  attempt  to  bring  the  gods  on  the  stage 
at  all.  "The  Glittering  Gate"  illustrates  this 
perfectly.  Then  while  everything  would  be  done 
to  suggest,  nothing  would  be  done  to  satisfy 
the  suggestion,  and  the  imagination  would  be 
left  free  to  spin  its  own  texture  of  immensity. 
Realization  always  falls  short  of  expectation; 
nothing  really  is  as  terrible  as  we  think  it  is 
going  to  be,  and  so  it  is  by  all  odds  best  to  rest 
content  with  the  thought,  sure  that  the  embodi- 
ment would  be  no  more  than  disillusioning. 
With  this  one  exception  "The  Gods  of  the 
Mountain"  is  a  practically  flawless  play.  And 
be  it  noted  in  this  connection  that  it  is  not  the 
dramatist  who  is  at  fault  in  this,  but  the  man 
of  the  theater,  and  Dunsany  does  not  pretend 
to  be  that. 

This  play  is  the  only  one  of  Dunsany's  which 
has  had  a  failure  in  production,  and  that  failure 

53 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

has  since  been  notably  retrieved.  When 
WilUam  A.  Brady  brought  the  Haymarket 
production  to  Buffalo  it  failed.  There  were 
two  reasons  for  this.  First,  the  bill  consisted 
of  two  plays  of  which  "The  Gods  of  the  Moun- 
tain" was  the  second,  and  the  bill  was  far  too 
long.  The  audience  did  not  leave  the  theater 
until  almost  midnight,  and  no  play  could  be 
expected  to  succeed  with  such  a  handicap. 
Next,  the  production  was  very  inadequately 
rehearsed,  so  inadequately  in  fact  that  the  gods 
are  said  to  have  fallen  over  each  other  as  they 
made  their  entrance.  I  simply  desire  to  point 
out  that  Dunsany's  one  failure  has  been  through 
no  fault  of  his  own. 

If  "The  Gods  of  the  Mountain"  were  a 
second  "Hamlet"  we  should  have  the  back- 
ground sketched  in  for  each  of  the  characters, 
giving  us  a  personal  interest  in  their  problems 
which  is  now  somewhat  lacking.  Agmar's 
tragedy  would  be  almost  imbearable  if  we  had 
a  deep  personal  interest  in  him.  It  is  man  in 
his  relation  to  the  gods  and  not  to  himself  or 
to  his  neighbor  which  we  are  called  upon  to 
observe,  and  so  the  personal  touch,  the  human 
element,  is  not  there.  There  is  something  greater 
54 


HIS    WORK 


there,  but  it  is  not  enough.  If  the  two  lesser  re- 
quirements were  fulfilled  as  the  one  greater  is, 
the  play  would  be  perhaps  one  of  the  greatest 
in  all  dramatic  literature.  As  it  is,  it  is  a 
masterpiece. 

The  plot  advances  to  its  conclusion  with  utter 
inevitability,  punctuated  by  the  forebodings  of 
Ulf,  who  sniffs  the  approach  of  Nemesis  as 
a  trained  dog  flinches  at  the  smell  of  death. 
It  is  impossible  to  praise  the  play  too  highly 
in  this  connection.  The  characterization  is 
clean  cut,  and  vivid,  the  lack  of  background 
accounting  for  the  fact  that  the  outlines  of 
the  personalities  are  somewhat  oversharp. 
They  have  to  be  in  order  that  they  may  stand 
out  properly.  Dunsany  has  never  surpassed 
in  his  dramatic  writings  the  poetry  of  Ulf's 
wailing  warning  of  their  doom  in  the  last  act. 
Agmar  too  has  in  several  places,  notably  the 
end  of  act  two,  wonderful  magic  lines,  poignant 
and  bitter  sweet  with  beauty. 

THE  GOLDEN  DOOM 

The  scene  is  outside  the  King's  great  door 
in  Zericon,  and  the  time  is  some  while  before 

55 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

the  fall  of  Babylon.  Two  sentries  guard  the 
door  and  talk  meanwhile  of  the  heat  and  the 
cool  of  the  nearby  river.  They  talk  also  of 
the  great  King,  and  one  of  them  feels  a  sense 
of  menace  as  if  some  doom  hmig  heavy.  A  star 
has  fallen,  and  that  may  be  a  sign.  A  little 
boy  and  girl  come  in.  The  boy  has  come  to 
pray  to  the  great  King  for  a  hoop,  but  he  can- 
not see  the  King  so  he  prays  to  the  King's  door 
instead. 

Boy.    King's  door,  I  want  a  little  hoop. 

The  girl  tells  of  a  poem  she  has  made  and 
then  proudly  she  recites  it. 

I  saw  a  purple  bird 
Go  up  against  the  sky 
And  it  went  up,  and  up, 
And  round  about  did  fly. 

Boy.    I  saw  it  die. 
Girl.    That  doesn't  scan. 
Boy.    Oh,  that  doesn't  matter. 

The  King's  Spies  cross  the  stage,  and  the  girl 
is  frightened.  The  boy  tells  her  that  he  will 
write  her  verses  on  the  King's  door,  and  at  this 
she  is  greatly  delighted.  And  so  he  writes  the 
verses,  appending  the  last  line  he  added.  The 
girl  again  protests,  but  the  line  is  written. 
56 


HIS   WORK 


The  sentries  have  hardly  noticed  the  children, 
but  now  they  hear  the  King  coming  so  that 
they  drive  the  youngsters  away.  The  King 
comes  with  his  Chamberlain,  and  as  he  nears 
the  door  he  sees  the  writing  on  it.  He  ques- 
tions the  sentries  but  they  say  that  no  one  has 
been  near  the  door;  it  does  not  occur  to  them 
to  mention  the  children.  The  King  fears  that 
this  writing  may  be  a  prophecy.  The  Prophets 
of  the  Stars  are  summoned  and  are  commanded 
to  interpret  the  prophecy  of  the  writing  on 
the  King's  door.  They  cannot  do  so,  but  each 
one  silently  covers  himself  with  a  great  black 
cloak,  for  they  believe  the  prophecy  to  be  a 
doom.  The  Chief  Prophet  is  summoned.  He 
reads  the  writing  and  says  that  the  King  can 
be  no  other  than  the  purple  bird,  for  purple 
is  royal;  he  has  flown  in  the  face  of  the  gods 
and  they  are  angry.  It  is  a  doom.  The 
King  offers  a  sacrifice.  He  says  that  he  has 
done  his  best  for  his  people;  that  if  he  has 
neglected  the  gods  it  was  only  because  he  was 
concerned  with  the  welfare  of  his  subjects  on 
earth.  The  King  and  the  Chief  Prophet  dis- 
cuss the  most  suitable  sacrifice,  and  finally 
decide  that  the  King's  crown  as  a  symbol  of 

57 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

his  pride  shall  be  offered.  The  King  asks 
only  that  he  may  rule  among  his  people  un- 
crowned, and  minister  to  their  welfare.  So 
the  crown  is  laid  on  the  sacrificial  block  before 
the  King's  door,  and  as  the  night  comes  on  and 
it  grows  dark  so  that  the  stars  may  be  seen, 
everyone  goes  away. 

Boy.  {enters  from  the  right,  dressed  in  white,  his 
hands  out  a  little,  crying)  King's  door,  King's  door,  I 
want  my  little  hoop.  {He  goes  up  to  the  King's  door. 
When  he  sees  the  King's  crown  there  he  utters  a  satisfied) 
0-oh!  {He  takes  it  up,  puts  it  on  the  ground,  and, 
heating  it  before  him  with  the  sceptre,  goes  out  by  the  way 
that  he  entered.) 

{The  great  door  opens;  there  is  light  within;  a  furtive 
Spy  slips  out  and  sees  that  the  crown  is  gone.  Another 
Spy  slips  out.  Their  crouching  heads  come  close  to- 
gether.) 

First  Spy.     {hoarse  whisper)  The  gods  have  come ! 

{They  run  back  through  the  door  and  the  door  is  closed. 
It  opens  again  and  the  King  and  the  Chamberlain  come 
through.) 

King.    The  stars  are  satisfied. 

So  the  play  ends,  on  the  high  note,  the  major 
chord  always. 

The  play  like  others  of  Dimsany's  represents 
the  expression  of  an  abstract  idea,  and  that 
idea  not  a  particularly  dramatic  one.  Again 
58 


HIS    WORK 


we  have  the  cosmic,  the  godlike  viewpoint, 
detached,  impersonal  and  vast.  A  King's  crown 
and  a  child's  hoop  are  weighed  against  each 
other  in  the  scale,  and  are  foimd  to  be  of  equal 
importance  in  the  scheme  of  things.  We  learn 
that  it  is  not  always  the  great  things,  but  some- 
times the  smallest  things  that  overthrow  whole 
kingdoms,  that  prophets  are  by  no  means  in- 
fallible, and  that  the  gods  may  speak  to  us 
through  the  mouth  of  a  child. 

The  "Golden  Doom"  is  well  constructed. 
It  builds  from  the  very  outset  to  a  triumphant 
conclusion.  But  it  lacks  opposition,  conflict. 
Man  is  neither  opposed  to  man  nor  even  to 
the  gods.  A  sacrifice  is  made;  will  does  not 
assert  itself  but  bows  to  the  inevitable.  As  a 
study  of  a  situation,  as  the  exposition  of  an 
idea  the  play  is  in  its  way  a  masterpiece,  but 
the  fact  that  the  forces  which  are  suggested  in 
the  action  are  not  contending  thins  the  piece 
from  a  purely  dramatic  standpoint.  It  is  the 
poet  rather  than  the  dramatist  who  speaks  in 
"The  Golden  Doom."  It  may  be  observed 
too  that  it  is  no  personal  problem  with  which 
we  are  confronted;  it  rarely  is  with  Dunsany. 
We  do  not  feel,  nor  is  it  desired  that  we  should 

59 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

feel,  a  sense  of  personal  sympathy  for  the  Boy 
praying  for  his  little  hoop,  or  for  the  King  lay- 
ing his  crown  on  the  sacrificial  block.  It  is 
Boyhood  in  the  mass,  nay,  even  in  the  abstract 
with  which  we  are  called  upon  to  sympathise; 
it  is  the  idea  of  Majesty  which  we  are  asked  to 
pity.  It  is  Man  in  the  conglomerate  whole 
with  which  we  are  dealing;  not  an  individual 
man.  It  is  necessary  that  this  should  be  well 
understood,  for  it  is  one  of  the  basic  principles 
of  Dimsany's  work,  and  it  is  summed  up  when 
I  repeat  that  he  is  more  interested  in  ideas 
than  he  is  in  people.  It  is  never  an  isolated 
individual  problem  which  he  attacks;  it  is 
rather  some  one  question  which  is  peculiar 
to  humanity  as  a  whole. 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  while  Dun- 
sany  does  not  provide  conflict  in  this  play  he 
does  provide  the  next  thing  to  it,  contrast, 
and  that  in  a  most  effective  manner.  The 
whole  episode  of  the  children  played  against 
the  background  of  royalty  with  its  spies  and 
its  prophets  is  immensely  ironic.  The  point 
of  view  of  the  child,  too,  with  its  perfect  and 
wholly  unconscious  logic,  becomes  delicious  when 
placed  in  juxtaposition  to  the  complex  outlook 
60 


HIS    WORK 


man  has  built  for  himself.  To  understand  this 
play  is  to  understand  Dunsany.  Invariably 
he  is  a  scoffer  at  the  subtleties  of  adult  philos- 
ophy, and  a  strong  adherent  of  the  clear,  un- 
sophisticated point  of  view  of  the  child.  He 
reduces  sophistication  to  its  basic  premise  of 
sophistry  times  without  number,  only  to  rise 
and  to  attack  once  more  from  another  direction. 
Dramatic  technique  is  largely  a  matter  of 
dramatic  instinct,  mixed  with  a  goodly  portion 
of  common  sense.  Dunsany  does  not  pretend 
to  be  a  technician,  but  observe  how  carefully, 
and  yet  how  easily,  we  are  shown  that  the  King's 
great  door  is  sacred  and  must  not  be  touched. 
A  stranger  from  Thessaly  enters  at  the  very 
beginning  of  the  action  and  approaches  the 
door.  The  sentinels  warn  him  off  with  their 
spears,  and  after  a  moment  he  wanders  away 
again,  having  provided  the  necessary  exposition 
in  the  most  natural  manner  possible.  The 
atmosphere  is  heightened,  and  we  hardly  realize 
that  we  have  learned  anything  of  importance. 
See  too  how  the  note  of  menace  is  struck  at 
the  very  outset  by  one  of  the  sentries  who  feels 
a  doom  and  a  foreboding.  It  is  not  unduly 
emphasized,  but  it  is  there  and  we  at  once 

61 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

feel  the  force  of  its  suggested  terror.  From 
then  on  we  wait,  sure  that  a  crisis  of  some  kind 
is  at  hand.  As  I  said,  the  play  ends  on  a  major 
chord,  but  it  does  even  more  than  this;  it 
ends  at  the  very  moment  when  it  should  end, 
neither  too  soon  nor  a  moment  overtime.  This 
point  is  true  of  Dunsany's  plays;  they  begin 
at  the  one  inevitable  moment  when  they  should 
begin,  and  they  end  in  a  like  manner.  This 
is  not  only  true  of  the  plays  as  a  whole,  but  it 
is  true  of  every  separate  scene,  and  of  every 
speech  in  the  scenes.  They  are  all  timed  to 
the  minute.  The  dialogue  of  Dunsany  has 
been  compared  with  that  of  Maeterlinck,  but 
the  comparison  is  superficial.  Maeterlinck's 
dialogue  is  often  so  vague  as  to  be  practically 
imbecilic  in  effect,  while  the  dialogue  of  Dun- 
sany is  always  terse  and  to  the  point:  not 
one  word  is  wasted,  there  is  never  a  shadow  of 
doubt  as  to  the  exact  meaning,  and  every 
speech  carries  the  action  definitely  forward. 
With  Maeterlinck  too  all  the  characters  speak 
in  the  style  of  Maeterlinck,  whether  they  be 
prince  or  peasant ;  there  is  no  attempt  to  give 
them  a  colloquial  value.  It  is  here  that  Dun- 
sany most  clearly  shows  that  with  his  marvelous 
62 


HIS    WORK 


imagination  he  has  combined  the  most  acute 
power  of  observation.  His  characters  are  as 
real  as  any  to  be  found  next  door  or  on  the 
high-road.  It  is  only  the  situations  which  are 
grotesque,  and  this  very  combination  of  the 
real  and  the  unreal  makes  for  dramatic  effect 
in  a  manner  of  which  Maeterlinck  for  all  his 
genius  could  not  dream.  Dunsany  has  ob- 
served and  noted,  and  the  results  of  that 
observation  are  as  true  to  life  as  any  preach- 
ment of  Ibsen's;  with  Dunsany  it  is  only  his 
terminology  that  is  strange. 

For  sheer  beauty  of  thought  and  of  expres- 
sion "The  Golden  Doom"  ranks  high  among 
Dunsany's  works.  It  is  full  of  wonderful  color, 
and  of  that  magic  atmosphere  of  which  only 
Dunsany  is  master.  It  has  a  story  to  tell,  and 
that  story  is  one  of  the  great  ones  of  the  world, 
albeit  that  the  theme  is  perhaps  more  suited 
to  the  poem  than  to  the  play.  That  is  the 
only  flaw  in  an  otherwise  faultless  bit  of  work, 
that  the  poet  has  for  a  moment  driven  the 
dramatist  to  a  secondary  position.  But  the 
work  was  well  worth  doing,  and  who  but 
Lord  Dunsany  could  have  written  "The  Golden 
Doom"? 

63 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 


THE  LOST  SILK  HAT 

This  is  one  of  Lord  Dunsany's  two  experi- 
ments with  a  "realistic"  background.  By 
reaHstic  I  mean  here  that  the  action  of  the  piece 
is  set  in  "a  fashionable  London  Street",  and 
that  the  characters  are  such  persons  as  one 
might  expect  to  meet  in  such  a  locality.  The 
acceptance  of  these  seK  imposed  conditions 
has  not,  however,  restrained  Dimsany,  in  the 
very  least  degree,  from  indulging  his  fancy, 
and  the  result  is  one  of  the  most  amusing  light 
comedies  imaginable.  There  will  doubtless  be 
some  who  will  insist  on  the  term  farce  being 
used  in  this  connection,  but  by  farce  is  meant 
a  play  where  the  plot  dominates  the  charac- 
terization, and  by  comedy  is  intended  exactly 
the  reverse.  In  this  play  again  we  find  an 
entire  lack  of  personal  background  for  the 
characters ;  they  have  individuality  rather  than 
personality;  we  are  dealing  with  broad  types 
used  for  the  exposition  of  certain  ideas,  but 
these  ideas  are  exposed  through  characteriza- 
tion rather  than  through  plot.  Hence,  if  it  is 
necessary  to  classify  the  play  at  all  it  seems 
64 


HIS    WORK 


quite  reasonable  that  it  should  be  dignified 
by  the  term  of  comedy.  If  it  were  a  longer 
play,  and  if  the  background  were  painted  in, 
it  is  entirely  possible  that  we  should  have 
been  treated  to  the  only  perfect  comedy  of 
manners  since  "The  Importance  of  Being 
Earnest."  The  outline  is  all  there,  ready  and 
waiting. 

The  Caller  stands  on  the  door-step  of  a 
house,  ''faultlessly  dressed",  but  without  a 
hat.  He  has  just  proposed  to  the  lady  in  the 
house  and  has  been  rejected,  and  in  the  mad 
desperation  of  the  moment  has  fled  leaving 
his  hat  behind  him.  His  predicament  is  no 
slight  one.  To  return  for  the  hat,  while  a 
sensible  measure,  would  be  an  inconceivable 
anti-climax,  and  he  cannot  be  ridiculous.  Not 
to  have  the  hat  is  an  equally  impossible  situa- 
tion. He  cannot  go  through  the  streets  of 
London  half  clothed !  A  Laborer  comes  along 
and  the  Caller  accosts  him  in  the  hope  that  he 
can  be  persuaded  to  recover  the  hat.  He 
tries  to  induce  the  Laborer  to  come  to  his  aid, 
he  tries  even  to  bribe  him,  but  he  only  succeeds 
in  arousing  the  suspicions  of  that  homy  handed 
person  to  the  effect  that  there  is  something 

65 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

very  mysterious  about  the  whole  affair.    The 
dialogue  between  the  two  is  outrageously  funny. 

Laborer.  You  aren't  going  to  give  me  a  sove- 
reign, and  rise  it  to  two  sovereigns,  for  an  empty  hat? 

Caller.  But  I  must  have  my  hat.  I  can't  be 
seen  in  the  streets  like  this.  There's  nothing  in  the 
hat.    What  do  you  think's  in  the  hat? 

Laborer.  Ah,  I'm  not  clever  enough  to  say  that, 
but  it  looks  as  if  the  papers  was  in  that  hat. 

Caller.    The  papers? 

Laborer.  Yes,  papers  proving,  if  you  can  get 
them,  that  you're  the  heir  to  that  big  house,  and  some 
poor  innocent  will  be  defrauded. 

And  so  it  goes  until  the  Laborer  makes  his 
departure,  sure  that  a  crime  is  on  the  verge  of 
commission.  A  Clerk  enters  and  he  is  ap- 
proached in  the  same  way,  and  with  the  same 
result.  He  too  is  suspicious,  but  his  imagina- 
tion is  not  capable  of  the  flights  of  that  of  the 
Laborer.  It  is  rather  his  sense  of  propriety 
that  is  violated ;  the  situation  is  unconventional, 
and  therefore  improper.  He  goes  away,  and 
the  Caller  is  left  alone.  Enter  the  Poet,  who 
having  the  whole  ghastly  mishap  explained  to 
him  is  disposed  to  be  indulgent.  He  philos- 
ophises at  length  upon  hats  and  upon  pro- 
posals and  at  length  advises  the  Caller  to  buy 
66 


HIS    WORK 


a  bayonet,  and  join  the  Bosnians.  There, 
having  given  up  his  life  for  a  hopeless  cause, 
he  will  become  immortal.  The  Caller  is  furious, 
and  at  last  decides  to  go  in  and  get  the  hat  him- 
self, whatever  the  cost.  The  Poet  pleads  with 
him  not  to  go,  for  if  he  does  there  will  be  a 
reconciliation  and  Romance  will  be  unsatisfied ; 
the  Caller  will  marry  the  lady,  and  will  have  a 
large  family  of  ugly  children.  Could  any- 
thing be  more  horrible  to  contemplate  ?  Never- 
theless in  the  Caller  goes,  and  the  Poet  sits 
disconsolate  on  the  door-step. 

Poet,  {rising,  lifting  hand)  .  .  .  but  let  there  be 
graven  in  brass  upon  this  house  :  Romance  was  bom 
again  here  out  of  due  time  and  died  young.  {He  sits 
down.  Enter  Laborer  and  Clerk  with  Policeman.  The 
music  stops.) 

Policeman.    Anything  wrong  here? 

Poet.  Everything's  wrong.  They're  going  to  kill 
Romance. 

Policeman,  {to  Laborer)  This  gentleman  doesn't 
seem  quite  right  somehow. 

Laborer.    They're  none  of  them  quite  right  today. 
{Music  starts  again.) 

Poet.    My  God !    It  is  a  duet. 

Policeman.    He  seems  a  bit  wrong  somehow. 

Laborer.    You  should  'a'  seen  the  other  one. 

Curtain. 
67 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

This  is  surely  a  most  excruciatingly  funny 
play.  The  Laborer  is  one  of  the  best  comedy 
characters  I  have  seen  in  a  long,  long  while. 
And  just  here  let  me  digress  sufficiently  to 
remark  that,  quite  unconsciously,  I  believe, 
Lord  Dunsany  has  in  the  Caller  and  in  the 
Poet  drawn  two  delicious  pictures  of  George 
Moore  and  Yeats  —  both  caricatured  broadly 
to  be  sure,  but  both  recognisable.  It  may  be 
that  it  is  simply  some  perverse  imp  of  the  gro- 
tesque that  makes  me  see  a  caricature  where 
there  is  none  intended,  but  the  thought  has 
amused  me,  and  so  I  pass  it  on  in  the  hope  that 
its  humor  may  not  be  entirely  exhausted. 

"The  Lost  Silk  Hat"  is  not  particularly 
dramatic,  even  for  a  comedy ;  nothing  happens. 
Its  carrying  power  exists  almost  entirely  in 
the  dialogue.  But  such  dialogue!  It  is  not 
witty,  for  wit  is  cold,  a  Shavian  quality,  in- 
tended not  to  expose  a  character,  but  to  make 
a  point,  while  humor  is  exactly  otherwise. 
The  French  are,  as  a  nation,  witty;  the  Eng- 
lish are  humorous.  The  deep  suspicion,  the 
frank  incredulity  of  the  Laborer;  the  strong 
common  sense  of  the  Caller ;  the  rigid  conven- 
tionality of  the  Clerk;  and  the  pure  romance 
68 


HIS   WORK 


of  the  Poet  are  all  as  clean  cut  as  possible. 
There  is  not  a  single  waste  word.  It  is  one 
of  the  most  delicious  bits  of  pure  humor  that 
I  have  ever  seen. 

Technically,  a  hard  word  to  use  surely  in 
this  connection,  the  piece  is  well  done.  The 
action,  such  as  it  is,  is  rapid,  each  scene  blend- 
ing easily  and  swiftly  into  the  next.  The  neces- 
sary exposition  is  given  in  a  few  words  which 
serve  not  only  to  elucidate  the  previous  happen- 
ings, but  also  to  develop  the  present  situation. 
This  is  quite  as  it  should  be,  but  how  rarely 
do  we  find  it !  One  becomes  so  used  to  machine- 
made  drama,  that  the  natural  flow  of  Dunsany 
is  like  an  echo  from  another  age. 

Having  pointed  out  that  Dunsany  always 
ends  his  plays  at  just  the  proper  moment,  I 
shall  now  have  to  qualify  the  statement  by 
remarking  that  the  conclusion  of  this  particular 
play  would  be  stronger  if  the  last  two  speeches 
were  omitted.  Whether  this  is  the  exception 
that  proves  the  rule  or  not,  I  do  not  know, 
but  there  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  it  is  an 
exception. 

Apropos  of  Dunsany's  constant  irony  there 
is  a  slight  point  which  may  be  worthy  of  atten- 

69 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

tion;  namely,  that  it  is  the  satirist  who  is 
witty,  and  the  humorist  who  is  ironic*  Dun- 
sany  certainly  comes  within  the  last  named 
category.  He  is  a  humorist,  even  a  great 
humorist,  and  the  final  test  is  that  in  their 
very  humor  his  plays  border  on  tragedy. 
Humor  may  be  turned  to  tragedy;  satire 
never  can  be.  The  chief  point  of  difference 
between  Dunsany  and  most  humorists  is  that 
while  their  outlook  is  personal  his  is  cosmic. 
Man  regarded  in  the  mass  becomes  a  gigantic 
joke,  his  pretence  that  he  is  civilised,  his  assump- 
tion of  entire  free  will,  and  all  his  foibles  of 
sophistication  are  entirely  comic.  It  is  only 
when  he  is  regarded  individually  that  he  is 
tragic,  and  that  which  makes  him  so  is  the  very 
same  element  that  made  him  comic  before. 
When  one  thinks  of  the  present  war  as  a  whole 
it  is  immensely  ironic,  but  when  one  stops  to 
consider  the  individual  personal  problems  in- 
volved the  great  irony  breaks  into  an  endless 
series  of  minor  tragedies  —  minor,  that  is,  in 
their  relation  to  the  whole.  Dunsany's  out- 
look is  as  nearly  universal,  and  hence  as  nearly 
detached  and  impersonal,  as  may  be ;  he  never 
reaches  the  personal,  he  never  tries  to  reach  it. 
70 


HIS    WORK 


That  is  at  once  the  cause  of  his  greatness,  and 
the  reason  why  he  is  not  greater. 

"The  Lost  Silk  Hat"  is  no  more  than  a 
trifle,  a  spark  flecked  off  the  emery  wheel  of 
the  imagination  of  the  artist,  but  it  is  so  perfect 
a  trifle,  and  so  brilliant  a  spark,  that  a  more  or 
less  serious  consideration  of  its  merits  is  by  no 
means  out  of  place.  The  small  thing  beauti- 
fully done  is  of  inestimably  greater  value  than 
the  great  thing  botched  in  the  making.  And 
perchance  in  this  play  we  may  find  a  promise 
of  that  perfect  comedy  of  manners  which  Dun- 
sany  may  one  day  write.  Certain  it  is  at  any 
rate  that  no  one  is  less  interested  in  such  a 
possibility  than  Dunsany  himself,  and  for  that 
we  can  be  thankful.  He  has  one  receipt  for 
writing  a  play  —  when  you  have  a  story  to 
tell,  tell  it  —  and  so  long  as  he  adheres  to  this 
dogma  we  can  at  least  be  sure  that  whatever 
the  result  may  be  we  shall  never  lose  interest. 

A  NIGHT  AT  AN  INN 

Dunsany  says  of  this  play  that  comparing 
it  to  "The  Gods  of  the  Mountain"  is  like 
comparing  a  man  to  his  own  shadow.    That 

71 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

sums  up  the  case  very  well.  "A  Night  at  an 
Inn"  is  indeed  a  shadow,  an  echo  of  the  greater 
work. 

The  curtain  rises  on  a  room  in  an  old  English 
Inn.  The  Toff,  a  dilapidated  gentleman,  is 
there  with  his  three  sailor  followers.  We  learn 
from  the  ensuing  conversation  between  the 
three  (the  Toff  does  not  enter  into  the  discus- 
sion) that  a  short  time  ago  the  party  raided  an 
Indian  temple,  and  robbed  the  idol  of  its  single 
eye,  a  huge  ruby.  Their  two  companions  were 
killed  before  they  left  the  country,  and  even 
now  the  three  priests  of  KJesh,  the  idol,  are 
following  after  the  fugitives  in  order  to  visit 
retribution  upon  theni  and  regain  their  own. 
Albert  tells  how  he  gave  the  priests  the  slip 
in  Hull.  The  Toff  has  brought  them  here  to 
the  old  Inn  which  he  has  hired  for  a  period  of 
time.  The  sailors  are  restless;  they  see  no 
more  danger  and  desire  to  be  off  with  their 
booty.  When  they  tell  this  to  the  Toff  he  bids 
them  take  the  ruby  and  go.  They  do  so,  but 
the  next  moment  are  back  through  the  door. 
They  have  seen  the  Priests  of  Klesh  who  have 
followed  all  the  way  from  Hull  —  eighty  miles 
on  foot.  The  Toff  has  expected  this,  and  has 
72 


HIS   WORK 


acted  in  consequence.  He  tells  them  that  they 
must  kill  the  priests  if  they  ever  expect  to 
enjoy  the  ruby  in  peace.  Through  his  clever- 
ness the  priests  are  trapped  one  after  the  other, 
and  are  murdered.  The  four  then  celebrate 
their  victory,  but  one  goes  out  for  a  pail  of 
water  and  comes  back  pale  and  shaking,  dis- 
claiming any  part  in  the  ruby.  Klesh  himself 
enters,  blind  and  groping.  He  takes  the  ruby 
eye  and  placing  it  in  his  forehead  goes  out. 
Then  a  voice  is  heard  calling  one  of  the  seamen. 
He  does  not  want  to  go  but  is  impelled  by  some 
mysterious  force.  He  goes  out,  a  single  moan 
is  heard,  and  it  is  over.  The  next  seaman  is 
called,  and  then  the  third.  Last  of  all  the  Toff 
hears  the  command  and  makes  his  final  exit. 

Albert  (going).    Toffy,  Toffy.     (Exit.) 

Voice.     Meestaire  Jacob  Smith,  Able  Seaman. 

Sniggers.    I  can't  go,  Toffy.    I  can't  go.     I  can't 
do  it.     (He  goes.) 

Voice.     Meestaire  Arnold  Everett  Scott-Fortescue, 
late  Esquire,  Able  Seaman. 

The  Toff.    I  did  not  foresee  it.     (Exit.) 

Curtain. 

He  did  not  foresee  it,  just  as  Agmar  did  not 
foresee  the  result  of  his  impiety.    Herein  the 

73 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

two  plays  are  close  together,  but  ''The  Gods  of 
the  Mountain"  is  immeasurably  superior  both 
in  conception,  and  in  the  handling  of  its  theme. 
It  has  poetry,  and  characterization,  whereas 
the  second  play  is  pure  melodrama.  And  cer- 
tainly it  is  one  of  the  best  melodramas  ever 
written.  The  one  error  made  in  the  entrance 
of  the  gods  in  the  first  play  has  been  repeated 
here,  and  with  just  as  detrimental  an  effect.  The 
same  arguments  which  we  considered  then 
apply  now  and  with  equal  force.  It  cannot 
be  done.  The  illusion  is  destroyed  immediately. 
This  is  the  only  error  to  be  found  in  either  play, 
and  it  may  be  said  again  that  it  is  an  error  not 
of  the  drama,  but  of  the  theater. 

The  construction  of  "A  Night  at  an  Inn" 
is  really  magnificent.  Gradually  it  gathers  force 
until  it  is  in  the  full  swing  of  tremendous  action, 
and  having  reached  the  climax  it  pauses  a  single 
instant,  and  then  with  a  marvelously  quick 
reversal,  it  pitches  down  to  the  end.  The 
"cloud  no  bigger  than  a  man's  hand"  is  seen; 
it  rapidly  spreads  over  the  whole  situation, 
until  finally  it  is  dispelled  to  all  appearances, 
but  at  the  very  moment  of  its  disappearance  it 
returns  only  to  envelop  the  whole  action.  The 
74 


HIS    WORK 


play  is  extraordinary  in  its  quick  movement, 
its  utter  surety  of  purpose,  and  in  the  peripetia 
which  gives  it  the  power  of  its  final  blow. 
That  is  one  of  the  most  astonishing  things  about 
all  these  plays ;  they  show  a  skill,  and  not  only  a 
facility,  but  a  power  of  handling,  which  one  is 
much  more  likely  to  ascribe  to  an  old  hand  than 
to  a  man  who  does  not  make  dramaturgy  his 
sole  business  in  life.  Dunsany  always  knows 
exactly  what  he  wants  to  do,  and  exactly  how  to 
do  it.  Under  the  circimistances  this  is  surely 
rather  astounding.  There  are  more  necessary 
mechanics  connected  with  the  drama  than  with 
any  other  form  of  the  literary  art.  Neither 
the  poem  nor  the  novel  has  so  rigid  a  structure 
(the  short  story  may  have),  and  it  is  therefore 
surprising  to  find  so  complete  a  control  over  a 
medium  to  which  one  has  not  devoted  much 
time  and  energy.  But  this  is  implying  that 
Lord  Dunsany  has  written  no  other  plays  than 
those  we  know,  and  this  indeed  may  be  the  case. 
We  speak  of  a  man's  first  play,  not  taking  into 
consideration  the  many  plays  he  may  have 
written  and  consigned  to  the  waste-basket.  It 
is  often  those  plays  which  make  a  man  a  writer, 
just  as  it  is  the  "scrub"  team  that  makes  the 

75 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

varsity  what  it  is.  But  all  evidence  goes  to 
prove  that  Dunsany's  first  play  was  ''The 
Glittering  Gate",  written  for  Yeats,  and  fol- 
lowed by  "King  Argimenes  and  the  Unknown 
Warrior."  Both  these  plays  show  the  hand 
of  the  tyro  in  places,  but  they  both  indicate 
a  grasp  of  form  that  is  amazing.  I  fear  that 
my  use  of  the  word  ''form"  may  be  antagonis- 
tic to  those  restless  spirits  who  chatter  so  easily 
of  "freeing  the  drama  from  the  shackles  of 
dogma."  I  have  a  strong  inward  conviction, 
however,  that  when  they  have  rid  themselves 
satisfactorily  of  the  shackles,  they  will  find  that 
somewhere  in  the  scuffle  they  have  lost  the 
drama.     However  —  ! 

In  their  sudden  reverse  twist  at  the  end, 
Dunsany's  plays  remind  one  of  0.  Henry's 
short  stories.  With  both  writers  too  the  same 
sense  of  economy  is  evident.  Not  a  word 
could  be  subtracted  from  "A  Night  at  an  Inn" 
without  its  loss  being  felt.  Sometimes  this  is 
carried  almost  to  an  extreme.  Dunsany's  im- 
agination outruns  his  pen  on  occasion,  and  there 
is  a  paucity  of  stage  "business"  in  his  manu- 
scripts that  has  made  at  least  one  producer  gasp. 
In  the  plays  one  sometimes  feels  that  while 
76 


HIS    WORK 


all  the  high  lights  are  present  there  is  a  lack  of 
shadowing,  of  detailed  line  work  which,  while 
not  vital,  is  at  least  desirable.  The  plays  are 
never  in  the  least  slovenly  in  workmanship, 
quite  otherwise  in  fact,  but  there  is  present  a 
sense  that  not  enough  time  has  been  spent  on 
them  to  give  us  all  that  the  author  has  imagined. 
This  doubtless  arises  from  the  fact  that  Dun- 
sany  concerns  himself  with  nothing  beyond  the 
story  itself.  He  is  not  interested  in  the  lights 
and  shadows  of  a  more  subtle  characterization, 
and  this  is  without  doubt  a  serious  weakness. 
But  it  is  only  in  the  acceptance  of  a  work  of 
art  for  what  it  is,  without  regrets  for  what 
it  might  have  been,  that  we  can  arrive  at 
any  conclusion. 

The  resemblance  of  "A  Night  at  an  Inn'* 
to  "The  Gods  of  the  Mountain"  is  particularly 
interesting  as  showing  how  effectively  the  same 
theme  can  be  treated  in  separate  ways.  The 
Toff  parallels  Agmar,  the  sailors  are  of  the 
same  ilk  as  the  beggars,  and  the  gods  are  always 
the  same.  The  same  philosophy  is  present  in 
both  plays,  but  the  sublime  audacity  of  the 
first  raises  it  to  heights  of  which  the  other  is 
not  capable.    Moreover  we  are  interested  in 

77 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

Agmar  as  a  personal  problem,  while  in  the  Toff 
we  never  feel  such  interest.  The  beggars  are 
individualized;  the  sailors  are  treated  collec- 
tively. All  this  marks  the  difference  between 
the  two  plays  especially  in  that  one  is  drama, 
and  the  other  is  melodrama  in  which  the  plot 
motivates  the  action,  as  opposed  to  drama  in 
which  the  action  is  motivated  by  character. 
"A  Night  at  an  Inn"  will  always  remain  one  of 
Dunsany's  most  effective  plays  because  it  is 
so  perfect  of  its  kind,  although  that  kind  may 
not  be  of  the  highest  type.  Certainly  it  shows 
that  Dunsany  can  provide  plenty  of  action 
when  action  is  called  for.  It  is  vital  to  the 
effect  of  the  play  that  the  action  be  extremely 
brief  after  the  entrance  of  Klesh,  yet  there  are 
still  certain  definite  things  to  be  accomplished. 
Without  conveying  a  sense  of  undue  hurry, 
with  only  such  speed  as  is  necessary  to  keep 
the  pitch,  the  play  is  brought  to  its  logical 
conclusion.  There  can  be  no  question  that, 
with  the  exception  of  the  bringing  of  Klesh 
on  the  stage,  the  play  stands  the  acid  test  in 
every  particular.  It  is  a  thrilling  bit  of  work ; 
a  tour  de  force  which  is  reminiscent  of  the  Grand 
Guignol,  but  which  is  wholly  lacking  in  the  mor- 
78 


HIS    WORK 


bidity  that  is  so  characteristic  of  that  Chamber 
of  Horrors. 

The  idea  of  dramatic  contrast  is  very  inter- 
estingly carried  out  in  this  play.  To  take  a 
minor  instance,  observe  how  the  quiet  calm, 
the  detached  disinterestedness  of  the  Toff 
stands  out  against  the  sailors  with  their  quicker, 
easier  emotions.  In  Agmar,  and  in  the  Toff, 
one  fancies  that  the  author  is  unconsciously 
drawing  a  picture  of  himself  as  he  would  be  with 
the  poet  absent.  There  is  a  certain  vague 
similarity  in  the  mental  attitudes  of  the  three. 
To  return  to  the  contrast ;  it  was  surely  a  dar- 
ing thing  to  set  so  grotesque  a  conception  in  so 
commonplace  a  backgroimd,  an  old  English 
Inn.  One  would  think  that  gods  and  half 
clothed  priests  would  enter  here  only  to  be 
laughed  at.  It  would  seem  to  be  like  playing 
"Macbeth"  in  evening  clothes.  It  is  through 
sheer  skill  that  the  result  actually  achieved  is 
quite  otherwise.  From  the  rise  of  the  curtain 
the  atmosphere  is  so  definite  and  so  tense  that 
there  is  no  possible  thought  of  incongruity. 
One  never  has  to  ''get  into"  the  atmosphere 
of  a  Dunsany  play.  The  atmosphere  reaches 
out  and  holds  you  even  against  your  will.    This 

79 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

is  due  partly  to  the  fact  that  Diinsany  himself 
is  convinced,  and  that  therefore  he  is  enabled 
to  be  convincing.  He  believes  so  thoroughly 
in  his  own  creations,  at  least  while  he  is  work- 
ing on  them,  that  the  audience  cannot  but  feel 
the  force  of  his  belief.  More  than  this  it  is 
skill  in  writing,  and,  mark  you,  it  is  the  skill 
of  the  poet  rather  than  that  of  the  dramatist. 
A  playwright  is  able  to  create  an  atmosphere 
of  this  description  only  when  he  is  a  poet  also. 
The  ability  of  Dunsany  to  do  this  and  to  do  it 
well  is  one  of  his  strongest  assets,  and  "A  Night 
at  an  Inn"  is  a  perfect  example  of  this  phase. 

THE  queen's  enemies 

The  place  of  this  play  is  in  the  great  room 
of  an  underground  temple  situated  on  the  bank 
of  the  Nile;  the  time  is  that  of  an  early  dy- 
nasty. The  stage  is  divided  into  two  sections. 
On  the  right  one  may  see  a  steep  flight  of  stone 
steps  leading  down  to  a  door  which  opens  into 
the  room  itself.  The  stage  is  dark.  Two 
slaves  come  down  the  steps  with  torches.  They 
have  been  ordered  to  prepare  the  room  for  the 
Queen,  who  is  about  to  feast  there  with  her 
80 


HIS   WORK 


enemies.  They  look  about  the  room  of  the 
old  disused  temple  and  comment  upon  the 
strange  eccentricity  of  their  mistress.  A  great 
table  is  set  in  the  center  and  at  one  end  of  it 
has  been  placed  a  throne.  From  the  shadow 
of  the  throne  moves  a  huge  figure,  much  to 
the  terror  of  the  slaves.  It  is  Harlee,  a  ser- 
vant of  the  Queen.  He  is  dumb,  his  tongue 
having  been  pulled  out  by  the  roots.  He 
laughs  at  the  two,  and  moves  to  one  side.  The 
slaves  go,  and  the  Queen  with  her  attendant 
comes  down  the  long  flight  of  steps  into  the 
room.  The  Queen  is  young,  and  slender,  and 
pretty.  She  bemoans  the  fact  that  she  has 
enemies.  Her  Captains  have  taken  their  lands 
but  she  knows  naught  of  it.  She  is  plaintive, 
beseeching,  almost  querulous  as  she  asks,  "Oh, 
why  have  I  enemies?"  Now  she  has  planned 
this  feast  of  reconciliation.  But  she  is  afraid 
to  be  there  alone  with  her  enemies.  She 
is  so  small  and  young;  they  may  kill  her. 
After  many  doubts  and  complainings;  after 
much  fear  and  trembling  she  decided  to  go 
through  with  it.  At  the  top  of  the  steps  lead- 
ing to  the  closed  door  appear  two  of  the  in- 
vited Princes.     One  of  them  is  distrustful  and 

81 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

does  not  want  to  go  further.  He  fears  a  trap. 
Finally  he  induces  his  fellow  to  turn  back,  but 
as  they  are  about  to  do  so  the  others  arrive 
and  there  is  nothing  to  do  but  to  enter.  The 
Princes,  a  King,  and  the  High-Priest  come  with 
their  slaves.  The  Queen  greets  them,  timidly. 
They  stand  about  the  room  imcertain  whether 
to  trust  her  or  not.  The  old  dumb  slave  of 
the  Queen  is  at  her  side,  and  she  murmurs  to 
him,  "To  your  post,  Harlee."  He  goes,  though 
one  of  the  Princes  stops  him  and  inquires  his 
mission  —  but  he  is  dumb.  The  Queen  finally 
manages  to  persuade  her  guests  to  sit  at  the 
feasting  board.  They  fear  to  eat,  and  the 
Queen  weeps  that  they  should  so  distrust  her. 
Moved  by  her  tears  they  eat.  She  offers  a 
toast  to  the  future.  As  they  are  about  to 
drink  it  the  High-Priest  says  that  a  voice  has 
just  come  to  him  speaking  in  his  ear  telling 
him  not  to  drink  to  the  future.  His  fears  are 
laughed  at  and  the  toast  is  drunk.  Then  the 
company  becomes  merry,  and  jest  and  story 
fly  across  the  board.  The  Queen  joins  in  at 
first,  but  when  she  sees  that  her  guests  are 
occupied  she  slips  from  her  throne  and  with 
her  attendant  tries  to  leave  the  room.  She  is 
82 


HIS    WORK 


stopped  at  once,  for  they  are  distrustful  of  her 
still.  But  she  has  promised  to  restore  to  them 
the  lands  she  has  taken,  and  they  cannot  be- 
lieve that  she  would  harm  them.  By  her 
generosity  she  has  made  them  all  her  friends. 
The  Queen  says  that  she  must  go  to  pray  to  a 
very  secret  god,  and  so  she  is  permitted  to  de- 
part. She  goes  out  and  part  way  up  the  steps, 
while  the  great  door  closes  fast  behind  her. 
The  guests  try  the  door  when  she  has  gone.  It 
is  locked.  They  fear  once  more  a  trap.  Slaves 
are  posted  at  the  door  with  weapons  and  they 
all  wait  in  silence  for  what  may  come.  The 
Queen  above  them,  unseen  and  unheard  by 
them,  on  the  steps  lifts  her  voice  and  prays  to 
old  Father  Nile.  She  tells  him  that  she  has  a 
sacrifice  worthy  of  him  —  Princes,  a  King,  and 
a  Priest.  She  asks  that  he  come  and  take  them 
from  her.  She  pauses,  but  there  comes  no 
answer.  Then  she  calls  swiftly,  ''Harlee,  Har- 
lee,  let  in  the  water ! "  There  is  another  deathly 
pause.  Then,  as  the  lights  darken,  from  an 
opening  in  the  room  below,  the  water  from  the 
Nile  pours  in,  and  amid  cries  and  shrieks,  the 
enemies  of  the  Queen  are  drowned.  The  water 
rises  up  the  steps  from  underneath  the  door; 

83 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

as  it  reaches  the  Queen  she  Ufts  her  gar- 
ment out  of  its  way  and  then,  mounting  a  step 
higher,  she  murmurs  voluptuously,  "Oh,  I 
shall  sleep  to-night!"  She  slowly  climbs  the 
steps  with  her  attendant  and  vanishes. 

In  the  character  of  the  Queen  we  are  con- 
fronted with  a  problem  which  the  play  itself 
does  little  to  solve.  Is  her  act  simply  a  cold 
blooded  deliberate  murder,  or  was  it  a  sudden 
impulse?  Throughout  the  play  she  maintains 
an  attitude  of  injured  virtue,  and  of  entire 
innocence.  This  pose  on  her  part  is  stressed 
until  it  is  unmistakable.  Is  this  hypocrisy 
or  is  it  natural?  If  it  is  natural  she  could 
never  have  done  what  she  did.  The  two  things 
are  wholly  incongruous;  if  she  is  one  she  can- 
not seemingly  be  the  other.  One  cannot  be 
a  sweet  and  innocent  girl  and  a  Lady  Macbeth 
at  the  same  time.  On  the  other  hand,  if  this 
attitude  is  merely  a  pose,  why  is  this  not  made 
evident?  To  keep  such  a  matter  from  the 
audience  is  fatal.  There  are  any  number  of 
times  when  the  Queen  could  have  thrown  off 
the  mask,  but  she  never  did  so.  The  result 
of  all  this  has  been  to  make  the  character  of 
this  royal  lady  extremely  obscure.  We  all 
84 


HIS    WORK 


agree  that  it  is  a  most  interesting  play,  but 
what  is  the  mystery  of  the  Queen?  She  is 
not  consistent;  nor  is  she  even  consistently 
inconsistent.  The  fact  that  she  told  Harlee 
early  in  the  action  to  go  to  his  post,  and  then 
later  called  to  him  to  let  in  the  water  surely 
indicates  beyond  question  that  the  murder 
was  most  carefully  planned  and  arranged  for. 
The  very  fact  of  the  feasting  place,  under- 
ground and  on  the  bank  of  the  Nile,  suggests 
this  also.  But  the  character  of  the  Queen  as 
it  is  shown  us  does  not  suggest  it  in  the  slightest 
degree,  and  the  sign-posts  which  I  have  just 
mentioned  are  too  slight  to  afford  adequate 
warning.  Hence  the  Dunsanyesque  surprise  at 
the  end  of  the  play  comes  with  an  unexpected 
shock;  the  characterization  so  carefully  built 
up  is  shattered  in  an  instant,  and  we  are  left 
to  gasp  in  amazement  at  what  seems  an  utter 
incongruity.  Surprise  calls  for  careful  prep- 
aration, and  here  there  is  little  or  none  of  it. 
In  both  "The  Gods  of  the  Mountain"  and  "A 
Night  at  an  Inn"  the  sense  of  menace  and  fore- 
boding is  gradually  built  up  until  the  event  of 
which  it  gave  warning  has  transpired.  But  in 
"The  Queen's  Enemies"  we  are  shown  a  woman 

85 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

who  is  one  thing  and  who  does  another  without 
warning  or  explanation.  Our  sense  of  the  fitness 
of  things  is  violated.  It  is  bad  dramaturgy 
somewhere. 

It  so  happens  that  Lord  Dunsany  has  himself 
furnished  the  key  to  the  problem,  and  before 
discussing  the  play  further  I  will  submit  his 
own  explanation.  The  Queen  is  wholly  un- 
conscious of  any  wrong  doing.  She  is  an 
aesthete ;  anything  ugly  either  in  itself  or  in  its 
effect  upon  her  is  to  her  a  distinct  immorality, 
something  to  be  obliterated  from  the  face  of  the 
earth,  to  suffer  nothing  but  annihilation.  Being 
this  she  is  of  course  sublimely  selfish.  She  is 
selfish  too  in  the  absolute,  not  the  relative  sense. 
If  a  dirty  child  brushed  against  her  she  would 
kill  that  child.  And  yet  she  is  of  the  most 
delicate  sensibility;  these  things  hurt  her,  and 
she  blots  them  out  of  existence  not  because 
she  feels  a  satisfaction  in  the  act  —  there  is  no 
sense  of  vengeance,  or  of  malice  —  but  be- 
cause she  believes  it  to  be  a  divine  duty  to  rid 
the  earth  of  that  which  she  deems  a  painful 
disfigurement.  So  when  she  prays  to  Father 
Nile  to  send  the  water  she  fully  believes  that  in 
offering  this  sacrifice  she  is  performing  a  holy 
86 


HIS   WORK 


task  —  albeit  a  most  unpleasant  one.  But, 
being  a  woman,  she  does  not  rely  too  greatly 
on  Father  Nile,  and  has  placed  Harlee  at  the 
flood-gates,  so  that  if  the  deity  does  not  respond 
the  sacrifice  will  still  be  accomplished.  And 
afterward,  when  the  water  rises  from  the  flooded 
room  up  the  steps  to  the  hem  of  her  garment, 
knowing  that  those  who  were  a  menace  to  her, 
who  haunted  her  bedside,  driving  slimiber  into 
the  shadows,  and  who  were  to  her  the  very 
apotheosis  of  all  that  is  evil  because  they  balked 
her  will,  were  gone  for  ever,  she  revels  in  that 
which  she  has  done,  knowing  that  her  offering 
to  the  gods  will  bring  to  her  the  rest  and  peace 
she  desires.  She  is  an  aesthete  wholly  without 
a  moral  sense ;  which  is  to  say,  only  a  sensualist. 
If  this  were  all  brought  out  in  the  play  it 
would  be  very  well,  but  it  is  not  so  brought  out. 
Lord  Dunsany  has  attempted  a  characterization 
which  was  beyond  him  considering  his  lack  of 
entire  acquaintance  with  his  medium.  I  have 
pointed  out  several  times  before  that  he  did 
not  as  a  rule  furnish  that  background  so  neces- 
sary to  vitalize  a  character  into  a  living  person- 
ality, but  never  before  has  there  been  the  same 
need  for  so  doing.    Now  such  a  background 

87 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

is  imperative,  and  the  fact  that  it  is  not  there 
has  frustrated  his  design.  The  play  is  intended 
to  be  an  immensely  subtle  characterization. 
Dunsany's  tendency  to  show  only  the  high 
spots  has  reduced  the  subtlety  to  intelligibility 
in  this  instance.  It  was  vital  that  the  back- 
groimd  should  be  filled  in.  The  play  is  inter- 
esting, and  has  been  successful  because  of  its 
atmosphere,  and  of  its  action.  But  the  moti- 
vating force  of  this  action  is  entirely  obscure. 
The  play  is  like  a  book  in  which  one  sees  only 
the  chapter  headings  and  the  illustrations. 

For  several  reasons  I  am  inclined  to  suspect 
that  Dunsany  intended  in  this  play  to  convey 
the  idea  that  the  Queen  was  in  reality  not  at  all 
different  from  the  ordinary  woman,  indeed  that 
she  typified  in  this  phase  of  her  character  Woman 
in  the  generic  sense.  The  moral  would  be  in  that 
case  that  women  are  utterly  ruthless  in  their 
pursuit  of  whatever  they  desire,  and  that  any- 
thing which  stands  in  the  way  of  such  a  pur- 
suit is  to  them  merely  an  evil  to  be  extin- 
guished. This  attitude  on  the  part  of  Lord 
Dimsany  toward  woman  in  general  I  shall  take 
up  more  in  detail  a  little  later,  as  it  applies  to 
several  of  the  plays.  As  Miss  Prism  remarked 
88 


HIS   WORK 


to  Dr.  Chasuble  in  "The  Importance  of  Being 
Earnest",  "A  misanthrope  I  can  understand 
—  a  woman thrope,  never!"  I  think  it  is  per- 
fectly safe  to  acquit  Lord  Dunsany  of  being  a 
'^womanthrope" ! 

It  has  been  suggested  several  times  that  the 
play  would  have  been  vastly  improved  if  it 
had  been  a  short  story;  that  the  drama  was 
not  the  medium  for  this  theme.  To  a  certain 
extent  this  theory  is  tenable.  The  story  writer 
can  fill  in  a  mass  of  detailed  characterization 
in  description  which  the  dramatist  must  express 
in  terms  of  action,  a  much  more  difficult  task. 
Hence  there  are  undoubtedly  some  themes 
which  the  playwright  would  do  well  to  leave 
to  his  fellow  craftsman.  I  do  not  believe, 
however,  that  this  is  one  of  them.  I  see  no 
reason  why  the  story  of  this  unconsciously 
cruel  Queen,  for  all  her  subtlety,  should  not 
be  told  in  dramatic  form.  The  best  solution 
would  probably  be  to  give  the  play  another  act, 
making  the  present  act  the  second.  In  act  one 
all  necessary  background  could  be  given  quite 
easily  and  dramatically  through  some  incident 
or  episode  which  would  suggest  in  itself  all 
that  has  been  omitted  in  the  present  version. 

89 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

"The  Queen's  Enemies"  is  one  of  Lord 
Dunsany's  poorest  plays.  And  though  this 
be  true  it  has  been  successful  and  deservedly  so. 
It  tells  an  interesting  story  in  a  most  dramatic 
manner;  it  has  atmosphere  and  color,  and  it 
shows  amusingly  how  much  better  Dunsany  is 
at  his  worst  than  many  others  at  their  best. 
I  class  the  play  as  I  do  because  it  fails  of  the 
purpose  for  which  it  was  intended.  It  set  out 
to  show  something,  and  it  failed  to  show  it,  and 
in  the  failing  it  obscured  the  action.  The 
salient  point  of  the  play,  its  real  raison  d'etre, 
is  the  underlying  motive  which  prompts  the 
action,  and  this  motive  is  so  vague  as  to  be 
incoherent.  That  which  remains,  the  action 
itself,  saves  the  piece,  but  it  is  not  enough  to 
turn  the  play  into  that  which  it  would  have  been 
had  the  whole  motivation  been  apparent.  That 
such  motivation  was  intended  is  very  evident, 
and  that  the  intention  was  not  carried  out  is 
equally  so. 

As  for  the  poetry  of  the  play,  that  lies  hidden 
for  the  most  part  with  that  portion  which  has 
never  seen  the  light.  It  is  not  there ;  the  most 
that  we  can  say  is  that  if  the  play  had  been 
written  as  it  was  intended,  it  would  have  been. 
90 


HIS    WORK 


I  may  seem  to  have  devoted  an  over-amount  of 
space  to  the  faults  of  "The  Queen's  Enemies", 
and  to  have  been  even  captious  in  my  criticism  of 
it.  The  play  which  has  few  or  no  flaws,  and  is 
able  to  stand  upon  its  own  feet,  naturally  requires 
less  attention  than  that  play  of  which  the  reverse 
is  true.  If  a  thing  is  good,  and  if  we  like  it,  we 
do  not  have  to  have  it  explained  to  us.  But  to 
understand  an  evil  is  to  forgive  it  —  which 
applies  here,  bad  paraphrase  though  it  is. 

THE  TENTS  OF  THE  ARABS 

As  we  are  dealing  with  the  plays  in  chronolog- 
ical order  it  should  be  mentioned  that  it  is  the 
first  production  of  "The  Tents  of  the  Arabs" 
in  November  of  1916  which  suggests  the  in- 
clusion of  the  play  at  this  particular  point. 
It  was  published  in  magazine  form  some  two 
years  before  it  was  produced. 

The  scene  is  outside  the  gate  of  the  city  of 
Thalanna,  and  the  time  is  imcertain.  Bel- 
Narb  and  Aoob,  two  camel  drivers,  sit  at  the 
gates  and  look  down  upon  the  city.  They  talk 
of  cities  and  of  the  desert,  of  the  splendour  of  the 
one  and  of  the  dreary  waste  of  the  other.    For 

91 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

long  they  talk,  wishing  that  their  lot  were  cast 
among  the  crowded  places,  and  that  they  did 
not  have  to  venture  their  lives  among  the  sand 
storms.  They  are  on  their  way  to  Mecca, 
and  the  voices  of  their  fellow  pilgrims  are  heard 
calling  them  to  come.  They  go,  and  hard 
upon  their  departure  the  young  King  enters, 
followed  shortly  by  his  Chamberlain.  The 
King  is  very  bored  with  the  council  chamber,  and 
the  court;  he  is  tired  of  the  walls  that  hem 
him  in,  and  weary  with  the  heavy  responsibili- 
ties which  have  been  forced  upon  him.  They 
have  sent  for  a  Princess  to  marry  him,  and  this 
is  not  because  of  love,  but  for  the  good  of  the 
State  only,  and  the  King  is  sad.  He  longs  for 
the  desert,  for  the  great  quiet,  and  rest,  and 
for  the  tents  of  the  Arabs.  He  has  known 
cities  too  long  and  he  is  weary.  He  says  he 
will  go  to  the  desert  for  a  year,  and  though  the 
Chamberlain  does  his  best  to  restrain  him  he  is 
decided.  The  Chamberlain  conspires  to  have 
his  escort  bring  him  back  very  soon,  for  when 
the  King  is  gone  there  are  no  favors  to  be 
given.  But  the  King  slips  away  alone,  and 
moimting  a  camel  is  soon  lost  among  the  sand 
hills. 

92 


HIS   WORK 


The  second  act  shows  us  the  same  place 
after  the  passing  of  just  one  year.  The  King 
sits  on  the  sand  and  by  him  sits  the  gypsy  girl 
of  the  desert,  Eznarza,  whom  he  loves.  She 
knows  who  he  is  and  that  he  must  leave  her, 
and  they  talk  there  sadly  of  their  parting. 

King.  Now  I  have  known  the  desert  and  dwelt 
in  the  tents  of  the  Arabs. 

Eznarza.  There  is  no  land  like  the  desert  and  like 
the  Arabs  no  people. 

King.  It  is  all  over  and  done,  I  return  to  the  walls 
of  my  fathers. 

Eznarza.  Time  cannot  put  it  away,  I  go  back  to 
the  desert  that  nursed  me. 

King.  Did  you  think  in  those  days  on  the  sands, 
or  among  the  tents  in  the  morning,  that  my  year  would 
ever  end,  and  I  be  brought  away  by  strength  of  my 
word  to  the  prisoning  of  my  palace? 

The  King  tries  to  persuade  Eznarza  to  come 
with  him,  and  to  live  with  him  in  his  palace, 
but  she  will  not,  for  a  gypsy  cannot  live  in  the 
great  walled  city.  She  tells  him  that  he  must 
go  back  and  marry  his  Princess.  And  then 
she  asks  him  to  come  with  her,  to  forget  Thal- 
anna,  to  return  and  dwell  with  her  among  the 
tents  of  her  fathers.  But  this  he  cannot  do, 
for  he  has  given  his  word  that  he  will  return, 

93 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

and  the  city  must  have  a  King.  The  Chamber- 
lain and  his  follower  come  in ;  they  are  expecting 
the  King.  They  do  not  notice  the  two  on  the 
sand.  Bel-Narb  and  Aoob  enter,  for  they  have 
returned  from  their  pilgrimage.  The  Chamber- 
lain speaks  to  the  noble  who  accompanies  him, 
and  as  it  is  past  the  time  they  feel  sure  that  the 
King  has  died  within  the  year  and  will  never 
return  to  them.  They  cover  their  heads  with 
dust.  Bel-Narb,  who  has  been  listening  to 
this,  suddenly  goes  up  to  the  Chamberlain  and 
says  that  he  has  returned,  that  he  is  the  King. 
The  Chamberlain  doubts,  surely  he  has  changed 
most  greatly  in  the  year,  but  surely  also  the 
desert  changes  men.  The  King  has  started 
to  his  feet,  but  he  does  not  interfere.  As  the 
Chamberlain  hesitates,  the  King,  half  covering 
his  face  with  his  cloak  as  an  Arab,  says  that  he 
has  seen  Bel-Narb  in  Mecca  and  has  there 
known  him  for  the  King.  This  confirmation  is 
all  that  is  needed.  At  once  Bel-Narb  is  rec- 
ognized by  Chamberlain  and  noble  ahke.  Aoob 
joins  his  voice  to  the  chorus  of  recognition. 
The  King  on  being  questioned  says  that  he  is 
but  a  poor  camel  driver,  and  when  they  wish 
him  to  go  to  the  temple  to  be  rewarded  he 
94 


HIS    WORK 


refuses,  for  he  must  return  to  the  desert.  The 
King  and  Eznarza  are  once  more  left  alone. 
The  people  of  the  city  are  only  fools,  and  now 
they  have  a  foolish  King.  The  rightful  King 
and  the  gypsy  will  return  to  the  tents  of  the 
Arabs. 

Eznarza.  We  shall  hear  the  sand  again,  whisper- 
ing low  to  the  dawn  wind. 

King.  We  shall  hear  the  nomads  stirring  in  their 
camps  far  off  because  it  is  dawn. 

Eznarza.  The  jackals  will  patter  past  us,  slipping 
back  to  the  hills. 

King.  When  at  evening  the  sun  is  set  we  shall 
weep  for  no  day  that  is  gone. 

Eznarza.  I  will  raise  up  my  head  of  a  night  time 
against  the  sky,  and  the  old,  old  unbought  stars  shall 
twinkle  through  my  hair,  and  we  shall  not  envy  any 
of  the  diademed  queens  of  the  world. 

Curtain. 

It  is  a  beautiful  story ;  one  almost  hesitates 
to  call  it  a  play,  although  it  is  one.  But  in  it 
the  poet  has  spoken  more  loudly  than  the  play- 
wright. In  the  first  extract  I  quoted  you  will 
notice  how  perfect  the  hexameter  lines  are 
through  the  first  four  speeches  and  the  first 
part  of  the  next.  The  following  also  is  really 
very  lovely  in  its  delicate  and  subtle  beauty. 

95 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

King.  Who  is  this  little  child  that  is  mightier 
than  Time?     Is  it  Love  that  is  mightier? 

EzNARZA.    No,  not  Love. 

King.  If  he  conquer  even  Love,  then  none  is 
mightier. 

EzNARZA.  He  scares  Love  away  with  weak,  white 
hairs  and  with  wrinkles.  Poor  little  Love.  Poor 
Love,  Time  scares  him  away. 

King.  What  is  this  child  of  man  that  can  conquer 
Time  and  that  is  braver  than  Love? 

EzNARZA.     Even  Memory. 

And  a  little  later  Eznarza  says  again  that 
"We  have  only  that  little  child  of  man,  whose 
name  is  Memory.'^  Dunsany  has  the  trick  of 
repeating  words,  phrases  and  thoughts  until 
they  seem  to  catch  a  swinging  rhythm  of  their 
own.  Alfred  Noyes  does  the  same.  Per- 
haps it  is  a  quality  of  the  lyric  poet,  though 
Dunsany  deals  with  the  epic  rather  than  with 
the  other  form.  But  they  are  both  poets, 
be  it  lyric  or  epic.  The  quality  that  I  have 
mentioned  has  the  ability  to  transmit  an  ele- 
ment of  sentiment  to  verse,  for  sentiment  is 
a  matter  of  association,  and  collation,  the  recall- 
ing of  an  emotion  through  its  recurrence. 

This  is  the  only  Dunsany  play  which  contains 
anything    nearly    approaching    a    love    story. 
96 


HIS    WORK 


The  story  here  is  passionless,  though  it  is  beauti- 
ful. For  once  the  woman  is  not  satirised  or 
poked  fun  at;  for  once  she  is  allowed  to  live 
and  be  beautiful.  But  even  so  one  somehow 
feels  that  she  is  here  rather  as  a  quality  than 
as  a  personality.  She  is  only  a  part  of  that 
desert  life  which  calls  the  King.  It  is  not  the 
desert  which  is  a  background  for  their  passion, 
for  their  passion  is  but  a  part  of  the  background. 
At  any  rate,  the  play  comes  near  to  being  a 
study  of  human  relations,  though  it  is  not. 
It  may  seem  to  be,  and  we  may  for  an  instant 
be  tricked  into  thinking  that  here  is  Dunsany 
in  a  new  mood,  showing  us  man  in  his  relation 
to  man,  or  to  woman,  but  this  is  not  true. 
What  the  play  really  tells  us  is  that  Kings  and 
cities  are  of  little  account  in  the  great  scheme 
of  things ;  that  the  dreamer  in  the  tents  of  the 
Arabs  fulfills  his  destiny  far  better  than  the 
monarch,  for  a  crown  may  crumble,  while' 
only  dreams  are  eternal.  When  Bel-Narb  goes 
to  the  city  as  King  we  see  the  false  reigning' 
over  the  fallacious ;  and  when  the  King  returns 
with  Eznarza  to  the  desert  we  see  him  who  has 
found  truth  accept  and  embrace  it.  Like  to 
like  they  return  to  each  other  forever. 

97 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

The  second  act  of  the  play  is  better  than 
the  first,  because  the  finest  poetry  of  the  play 
is  in  that  act,  and  because  that  act  contains 
the  only  drama,  the  scene  where  Bel-Narb 
passes  himself  off  as  the  King.  There  is  not 
another  dramatic  scene  in  the  play.  The 
witchery  of  the  atmosphere,  the  music  of  the 
lines,  the  beauty  of  the  thoughts,  the  poetry 
and  magic  of  the  expression  are  what  make 
the  play  really  fine.  There  is  no  drama.  One 
may  be  permitted  to  do  this  and  still  have  a 
play  when  one  is  done,  if  one  can  do  it  in  this 
wise.  For  the  result  will  hold  an  audience, 
and  there  is  form  in  the  structure.  A  play  is  little 
more  than  this.  There  are  several  opportuni- 
ties for  strong  dramatic  action  in  the  last  act, 
but  they  have  all  been  passed  over.  It  seems 
to  me  right  that  this  should  be  so,  for  the  intro- 
duction of  any  element  of  violence,  even  though 
it  does  not  express  itself  in  physical  terms, 
would  be  entirely  out  of  keeping  with  the  rest 
of  the  play.  The  delicacy  of  the  whole  con- 
ception would  be  thrown  out  of  key  by  a  note 
too  hot  with  passion.  In  the  play  we  see  that 
world  in  which  our  bodies  are  contend  with  that 
greater  world  of  the  spirit,  and  we  see  the  first 
98 


HIS   WORK 


world  lose.  "The  Tents  of  the  Arabs"  may  be 
said  to  be  perhaps  the  least  dramatic,  and  the 
most  poetic  of  Dunsany's  plays.  Were  it  not 
that  its  poetry  is  very  exquisite  the  play  would 
sink  to  an  insignificant  place  in  relation  to  the 
others ;  as  it  is  we  can  never  forget  it. 

There  are  two  plays  of  Lord  Dunsany's 
which  have  neither  been  produced  nor  published. 
These  are  "The  Laughter  of  the  Gods"  and 
"King  Alexander."  Of  the  first  I  know  only 
that  it  is  about  the  length  of  "  The  Gods  of  the 
Mountain",  and  that,  though  the  gods  are 
there,  they  never  come  on  the  stage.  It  is 
said  to  be  one  of  Dunsany's  finest  pieces  of 
work,  and  I  regret  that  I  have  not  been  privi- 
leged to  read  the  manuscript  up  to  the  present. 
The  second  play  deals  with  that  Alexander 
of  history,  so  I  suppose  one  may  call  it  "his- 
torical" in  a  certain  sense.  But  from  what 
I  know  of  Lord  Dunsany  I  am  strongly  of 
the  opinion  that  its  historical  value  is  not  its 
salient  feature.  That  is  reassuring  at  any 
rate.  Lord  Dimsany  started  to  collaborate 
with  Padraic  Colum  in  the  writing  of  this  play, 
but  when  Mr.  Colum  saw  how  little  the  play 
was  his,  and  how  much  Dunsany's,  he  decided 

99 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

that  he  had  better  give  the  manuscript  over. 
It  would  have  been  interesting  had  this  colla- 
boration been  carried  to  a  conclusion,  but  it  is 
probable  that  each  man  was  too  great  in  him- 
self to  write  with  another.  Collaboration 
usually  means  compromise,  and  genius  com- 
promises with  nothing. 

THE  TALES 

Beside  his  plays  there  are  to  Lord  Dunsany's 
credit  seven  volumes  of  short  tales;  I  call 
them  tales  for  want  of  a  better  title.  Some- 
times they  are  mere  random  thoughts  jotted 
down  seemingly  until  such  time  as  they  found 
place  in  some  more  pretentious  form.  The 
book  of  "Fifty-One  Tales"  might  so  be  de- 
scribed almost  as  a  note-book,  so  fleeting,  and 
so  incomplete  are  some  of  the  conceptions; 
yet  there  are  others  of  which  one  might  say 
that  to  write  them  alone  was  to  have  at  least  a 
finger  upon  immortality.  There  is  not  one  of 
them  which  is  not  beautiful  in  thought  and 
in  expression.  They  give  too  strange  inner 
glimpses  of  the  man's  philosophy,  his  entire 
loyalty  to  beauty,  and  his  disgust  of  com- 
100 


HIS   WORK 


promise.  Baudelaire  might  have  written  them 
so  far  as  form  is  concerned,  but  the  point  of 
view,  and  it  is  that  which  makes  them  important 
first  of  all,  is  Dunsany's  alone.  In  some  of 
the  longer  tales  one  may  find  pure  metrical 
flights  of  surpassing  loveliness,  almost  sensuous 
in  the  long  swinging  hexameters  which  are  so 
reminiscent  of  the  Greece  by  which  they  were 
doubtless  suggested.  The  following  fragment 
by  the  change  of  a  syllable  here  and  there  is  a 
perfect  example  of  this  phase : 

"  Clad  though  that  city  was  in  one  robe  always,  in 
twilight,  yet  was  its  beauty  worthy  of  even  so  lovely 
a  wonder;  city  and  twilight  both  were  peerless  but 
for  each  other.  Built  of  a  stone  unknown  in  the  world 
we  tread  were  its  bastions,  quarried  we  know  not  where, 
but  called  by  the  gnomes  abyx,  it  so  flashed  back  to 
the  twilight  its  glories,  color  for  color,  that  none  can 
say  of  them  where  their  boundary  is,  and  which  the 
eternal  twilight,  and  which  the  City  of  Never;  they 
are  the  twin-born  children,  the  fairest  daughters  of 
Wonder.  Time  had  been  there,  but  not  to  work  de- 
struction; he  had  turned  to  a  fair,  pale  green  the 
domes  that  were  made  of  copper,  the  rest  he  had  left 
untouched,  even  he,  the  destroyer  of  cities,  by  what 
bribe  I  know  not  averted." 

This  is  from  a  tale  in  "The  Book  of  Wonder", 
which  Dunsany  calls  "A  Chronicle  of  Little 

101 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

Adventures  at  the  Edge  of  the  World."  The 
Preface  to  this  volume  is  very  charming,  and  is 
even  remindful  of  another  invitation  extended 
to  us  all  some  hundreds  of  years  ago :  '*  Come 
with  me,  ladies  and  gentlemen  who  are  in  any 
wise  weary  of  London:  come  with  me:  and 
those  that  tire  at  all  of  the  worlds  we  know: 
for  we  have  new  worlds  here." 

It  is  in  "The  Gods  of  Pegana"  that  Dunsany 
creates  that  mythology  upon  which  so  much 
of  his  work  is  founded.  He  is  discovered  here 
playing  with  his  gods  as  with  a  new  toy,  tender, 
ironic,  and  severe  as  the  occasion  seems  to 
warrant.  And  little  by  little  grew  his  gods  in 
strength  and  stature,  until  they  were  as  gods 
indeed.  In  1912,  W.  B.  Yeats  published  "  Selec- 
tions from  the  Writings  of  Lord  Dunsany", 
to  which  Mr.  Yeats  contributed  an  Introduc- 
tion from  which  I  shall  quote  at  length,  for  it 
gives  an  estimate  of  Dunsany  from  a  fellow 
craftsman  who  is  always  as  great  in  his 
generosity  as  in  his  genius. 

"These  stories  and  plays  have  for  their  continual 

theme  the  passing  away  of  gods  and  men  and  cities 

before  the  mysterious  power  which  is  sometimes  called 

by  some  great  god's  name  but  more  often  'Time.' 

102 


HIS   WORK 


His  travelers  who  travel  by  so  many  rivers  and  deserts 
and  listen  to  sounding  names  none  heard  before,  come 
back  with  no  tale  that  does  not  tell  of  vague  rebellion 
against  that  power,  and  all  the  beautiful  things  they 
have  seen  get  something  of  their  charm  from  the  pathos 
of  fragility.  This  poet  who  has  imagined  colors, 
ceremonies  and  incredible  processions  that  never  passed 
before  the  eyes  of  Edgar  Allan  Poe  or  of  De  Quincey, 
and  remembered  as  much  fabulous  beauty  as  Sir 
John  Mandeville,  has  yet  never  wearied  of  the  most 
universal  of  emotions  and  the  one  most  constantly 
associated  with  the  sense  of  beauty;  and  when  we 
come  to  examine  these  astonishments  that  seem  so 
alien  we  find  that  he  has  but  transfigured  with  beauty 
the  common  sights  of  the  world.  He  describes  the 
dance  in  the  air  of  large  butterflies  as  we  have  seen  it 
in  the  sun  steeped  air  of  noon.  'And  they  danced, 
but  danced  idly,  on  the  wings  of  the  air,  as  some 
haughty  queen  of  distant  conquered  lands  might  in 
her  poverty  and  exile  dance  in  some  encampment  of 
the  gypsies  for  the  mere  bread  to  live  by,  but  beyond 
this  would  never  abate  her  pride  to  dance  for  one 
fragment  more.'  He  can  show  us  the  movement  of 
sand,  as  we  have  seen  it  where  the  sea  shore  meets  the 
grass,  but  so  changed  that  it  becomes  the  deserts  of 
the  world :  'And  all  that  night  the  desert  said  many 
things  softly  and  in  a  whisper,  but  I  knew  not  what 
he  said.  Only  the  sand  knew  and  arose  and  was 
troubled  and  lay  down  again  and  the  wind  knew. 
Then  as  the  hours  of  the  night  went  by,  these  two 
discovered  the  foot-tracks  wherewith  we  had  disturbed 
the  holy  desert  and  they  troubled  over  them  and 


103 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

covered  them  up ;  and  then  the  wind  lay  down  and  the 
sand  rested.'  Or  he  will  invent  some  incredible  sound 
that  will  yet  call  before  us  the  strange  sounds  of  the 
night,  as  when  he  says,  'Sometimes  some  monster  of 
the  sea  coughed.'  And  how  he  can  play  upon  our 
fears  with  that  great  gate  of  his,  carved  from  a  single 
ivory  tusk  dropped  from  some  terrible  beast;  or  with 
his  tribe  of  wanderers  that  pass  about  the  city  telling 
one  another  tales  that  we  kiiow  to  be  terrible  from 
the  blanched  faces  of  the  listeners  though  they  tell 
them  in  an  unknown  tongue ;  or  with  his  stone  gods  of 
the  mountain,  for  'when  we  see  rock  walking  it  is 
terrible,'  'rock  should  not  walk  in  the  evening.' 

"Yet  say  what  I  will,  so  strange  is  the  pleasure 
that  they  give,  so  hard  to  analyse  and  describe,  I  do 
not  know  why  these  stories  and  plays  delight  me. 
Now  they  set  me  to  thinking  of  some  old  Irish  jewel 
work,  now  of  a  sword  covered  with  Indian  Arabesques 
that  hangs  in  a  friend's  hall,  now  of  St.  Mark's  at 
Venice,  now  of  cloud  palaces  in  the  sundown;  but 
more  often  still  of  a  strange  country  or  state  of  the  soul 
that  once  for  a  few  weeks  I  entered  in  deep  sleep  and 
after  lost  and  have  ever  mourned  and  desired." 

Indeed  the  tales  are  very  like  to  the  plays 
except  that  lacking  the  fixed  quality  of  the 
dramatic  form  they  have  become  even  more 
fanciful.  "Fifty-One  Tales"  is  perhaps  a  little 
more  philosophical  in  tone;  the  gentle  irony 
of  the  author  shows  itself  again  and  again, 
sometimes  flaring  up  fiercely  in  'a  glow  of  indig- 
104 


HIS    WORK 


nation  at  the  cobbled  streets  that  dare  to  wan- 
der over  the  dancing  places  of  Pan,  sometimes 
tenderly  rebuking  those  who  can  see  no  other 
beauty  than  the  tall  chimneys  of  factories,  and 
again  the  spirit  changes  to  a  wonder  and  an 
awe  at  the  great  immensity  of  existence. 

It  has  been  remarked  that  most  of  the  plays 
would  fit  well  into  the  form  of  stories,  and  it 
is  quite  as  true,  on  the  other  hand,  that  many 
of  the  stories  would  do  well  as  plays.  Some 
of  them  could  not  be  dramatised,  they  are  too 
light,  too  fragile,  and  too  lacking  in  action; 
but  others  would  be  splendid  material.  The 
tale  of  the  magic  window  and  of  the  war  in  the 
other  world,  the  story  of  the  quest  of  the  Queen's 
tears,  the  dreadful  adventure  that  befell  three 
literary  men,  would  all  make  plays,  and  there 
are  many  more  that  would  go  with  them. 
Yet  were  they  put  into  dramatic  form  there 
would  be  so  much  that  would  have  to  be  lost 
from  them  that  the  change  would  be  of  ques- 
tionable wisdom.  For  in  these  tales  Dimsany 
has  permitted  the  bridle  rein  to  droop  upon 
the  neck  of  Pegasus,  and  that  steed  has  wan- 
dered to  and  fro  among  the  hills  and  meadows, 
he  has  sniffed  the  woods  and  has  paused  to 

105 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

drink  from  the  stream  that  runs  through  the 
pasture,  and  all  life  around  him  has  known  a 
golden  and  a  glorious  awakening.  So  there  are 
some  things  which  are  too  subtle,  and  there 
are  some  which  are  too  delicate  to  be  transmitted 
to  a  play,  but  though  this  be  so  the  tales  them- 
selves would  never  have  risen  to  their  present 
importance  had  it  not  been  that  some  of  their 
kind  were  embodied  in  dramatic  form.  There 
is  a  force,  a  directness,  a  concentration,  not 
only  of  attention,  but  of  energy  which  gives 
a  carrying  power  to  the  play  which  the  tale 
can  never  attain.  Nor  is  such  attainment 
intended;  the  cow  and  the  horse  are  both 
noble  animals,  but  we  would  never  look  for 
milk  from  the  latter. 

Dunsany's  tales  convey  us  to  lands  that  we 
never  before  knew  existed.  His  favorite  loca- 
tion is  that  which  he  calls  "The  Edge  of  the 
World",  for  the  passion  for  geography  is  of  the 
school-room,  and  Dunsany  is  too  big  to  be 
confined  within  the  mean  and  narrow  circle  of 
four  walls.  We  may  call  some  of  the  tales 
symbolic,  and  others  allegorical,  while  to  nearly 
all  of  them  we  may  attribute  some  deep  and 
hidden  meaning  that  must  be  frantically 
106 


HIS    WORK 


searched  for  by  women's  clubs  and  classes  in 
the  drama.  Far  better  is  it  to  take  them  as 
they  stand,  fairy  tales  for  grown  ups,  whose 
merit  is  in  the  story  to  be  told  and  in  the  manner 
of  the  telling.  What  else  comes  to  us  easily 
and  naturally  from  them  may  be  considered 
as  a  gift  from  the  gods.  It  may  have  been 
placed  there  carefully  by  the  author,  or  he  may 
never  have  seen  it.  The  last  seems  to  me  the 
only  true  conclusion.  But  whatever  we  find 
we  shall  be  happier,  and  even  wiser,  for  it. 


107 


Ill 

His  Philosophy 

Lord  Dunsany's  outlook  on  the  art  of  the 
theater  and  that  of  the  drama  has  by  no  means 
been  confined  by  local  restrictions.  In  1913 
there  might  have  been  seen  in  the  pamphlet 
issued  from  Florence  by  Edward  Gordon  Craig 
an  advertisement  of  Craig's  school  for  the  art 
of  the  theater.  An  international  committee 
was  appointed  and  the  two  members  for  Ireland 
were  W.  B.  Yeats  and  Lord  Dunsany.  There 
is  printed  too  in  the  same  place  a  list  of  the 
donations  and  gifts  toward  this  school,  and  here 
Dunsany's  name  "heads  all  the  rest."  This 
is  doubtless  because  his  was  the  only  cash 
contribution ;  it  was  certainly  a  most  generous 
one,  consisting  of  one  hundred  pounds.  What 
became  of  the  venture,  and  how  Lord  Dimsany's 
hundred  pounds  were  expended  belongs  to  that 
part  of  history  which  is  still  immured  in  the 
108 


HIS    PHILOSOPHY 


archives  of  the  unknown.  At  any  rate  it  was  a 
worthy  cause,  and  one  which,  by  reason  of  its 
very  intangibihty,  was  sure  to  appeal  to  both 
the  members  from  Ireland. 

That  which  is  far  away  always  seems  to 
appeal  to  Dunsany  most,  and  the  further  away 
it  is  the  stronger  the  appeal.  When  he  speaks 
of  ''King  Argimenes  and  the  Unknown  War- 
rior" as  being  the  first  play  about  his  own  coun- 
try he  is  very  evidently  not  talking  about 
Ireland,  but  of  that  mythical  land  of  which  he 
is  the  discoverer.  There  is  a  danger  in  all 
this,  and  it  is  no  small  danger.  The  realm  of 
pure  abstraction  invites  to  rest  and  contempla- 
tion, especially  after  one  has  been  deluged  with 
the  opposite  phase  of  life  to  the  point  of  nausea. 
But  when  one  wanders  so  far  from  the  things  of 
every  day  that  one's  thoughts  seem  to  have 
no  application  to  the  everyday  man,  it  is  high 
time  to  pause  and  consider  the  possibility  of 
inter-terrestrial  communication.  There  is  a 
point  where  Dunsany  in  his  effort  to  deal  only 
with  the  big  things  ends  by  glorifying  the  little 
things,  by  doing  the  small  thing  infinitely  well, 
instead  of  doing  the  big  thing  in  any  manner. 

Not  once  but  many  times  I  have  compared 

109 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

Lord  Dunsany's  work  with  that  of  ancient 
Greece,  tracing  in  his  plays  and  tales  a  resem- 
blance to  the  old  gods,  and  to  the  eternal  battle 
between  man  and  destiny.  And  I  have  pointed 
out  the  three  points  of  view  with  which  a  poet 
may  regard  his  own  creations.  But  I  neglected 
to  say  that  all  three  of  these  points  of  view  are 
the  same.  It  is  necessary  for  me  to  talk  a  little 
of  religion  in  order  that  I  may  make  this  clear 
to  you.  I  have  no  apology  for  including  such  a 
dissertation  here,  for  I  am  talking  of  a  poet, 
of  one  who  writes  of  Beauty;  and  surely  God 
and  Beauty  are  the  same.  Lord  Dunsany  has 
made  his  gods  to  be  absolute,  omnipotent, 
divine  beyond  the  very  outskirts  of  the  cosmos, 
and  in  this  I  believe  he  has  been  mistaken. 
His  gods  are  those  of  the  ancient  Hebrews; 
they  are  like  the  Egyptian  gods,  for  they  are 
implacable  and  apart.  Not  so  the  gods  of 
Greece.  Before  they  became  material  for  the 
plays  and  stories  of  men  they  had  been  hu- 
manized, they  had  learned  to  suffer.  Their 
followers  endowed  them  with  the  traits  of 
mankind,  love,  hate,  gratitude,  and  they  were 
even  permitted  to  sorrow.  In  a  word  they 
were  not  only  individual  but  personal.  Then 
110 


HIS    PHILOSOPHY 


came  the  Christian  religion  founded  upon  Christ 
crucified,  the  greatest  and  most  intimate  per- 
sonification of  all.  Lord  Dunsany  has  removed 
his  gods  too  wholly  from  the  lives  of  men. 
They  are  depersonalized,  detached,  impenetra- 
ble, and  vast,  but  they  bear  no  relation  to  their 
servant,  man.  This  mythology  is  wholly  of 
itself,  a  thing  apart,  and  therein  lies  its  weak- 
ness. In  the  three  points  of  view  which  I  have 
offered  as  a  basis  for  discussion,  the  first  two 
must  blend  and  lose  themselves  in  the  last 
before  we  can  have  the  perfect,  rounded  work 
of  art.  Man  in  his  relation  to  himself,  and  to 
his  fellows,  is  in  his  relation  to  the  whole,  to 
the  cosmos,  to  God.  For  while  man  is  not  a 
God,  God  is  a  man.  The  three  cannot  in  reality 
be  considered  as  separate  entities;  they  are 
simply  the  three  parts  of  one  great  whole.  Lord 
Dunsany  has  taken  one  of  these  parts  and  has 
set  it  aside  from  the  other  two ;  he  has  isolated 
it,  and  differentiated  it  by  every  possible  means. 
In  this  way  he  hoped  to  achieve  infinity, 
but  in  reality  he  has  only  imposed  a  false  re- 
striction. God  may  be  infinite,  but  He  is  not 
so  in  His  relation  to  us,  and  so  when  we  deal 
with  gods  and  men  we  must,  by  very  reason  of 

111 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

the  relationship,  deal  with  those  gods  as  finite. 
This  was  well  understood  by  the  great  dramatists 
of  Greece,  and  it  is  in  the  misunderstanding  of 
this  eternal  fact  that  Dunsany  has  handicapped 
his  power.  Dxmsany  has  shown  us  the  falsity 
of  the  super-man  of  Nietzsche,  but  in  his  place 
we  are  given  a  super-god  even  more  terrible. 
His  place  is  that  of  pure  abstract  thought, 
devoid  of  emotion,  and  so  neither  in  his  gods 
nor  in  the  world  they  rule  do  we  find  a  trace  of 
passion  either  human  or  divine.  It  is  this  that 
sets  his  work  apart  from  the  lives  of  men,  and 
it  is  this  which  is  his  greatest  limitation.  Life 
is  action  motivated  by  emotion.  Dunsany 
deals  only  with  ideas.  It  is  true  that  those 
ideas  are  beautiful,  but  no  matter  how  beautiful 
they  may  be  they  are  nothing  more  than  the 
unborn  children  of  life.  In  the  dream  world 
he  has  created  we  find  many  of  the  superficial 
traits  and  idiosyncrasies  of  humanity,  and  these 
deceive  us  into  thinking  for  a  moment  that 
his  people  are  even  as  ourselves.  But  when 
we  probe  deeper  we  discover  that  it  is  all  a 
sham,  that  not  once  does  a  single  human  emo- 
tion show  above  the  surface.  If  this  make- 
believe  world  is  to  remain  as  calm  and  as 
112 


HIS    PHILOSOPHY 


detached  as  he  would  have  it  there  must  be  no 
human  passion  to  disturb  the  quiet  of  the  dream. 
That  is  why  there  are  so  few  women  in  Dim- 
sany's  plays,  and  that  is  why,  when  they  do 
appear,  they  serve  merely  as  a  background 
or  a  mouthpiece.  For  man's  relationship  with 
woman  is  more  intimate  than  any  other;  it 
is  vitally  personal,  and  it  is  often  great  with 
passion.  Intimacy,  personality,  and  passion 
are  three  things  with  which  Dunsany's  gods 
may  have  nothing  to  do.  If  they  had  it  might 
make  them  less  god-like,  but  certainly  it  would 
make  them  more  divine.  Dunsany  has  remem- 
bered that  in  heaven  there  is  "neither  marrying 
nor  giving  in  marriage,"  but  his  interpretation 
has  been  too  literal.  Let  me  say  again  that 
while  a  poet  may,  nay,  must,  have  his  head 
in  the  clouds,  his  feet  must  touch  earth  soil. 
Dimsany  is  an  aesthete.  His  beauty  is  that 
which  we  appreciate  with  our  minds,  and 
senses.  We  see  the  splendour  of  the  pictures 
he  paints  for  us,  the  wonder  and  magic  of  his 
faerie  dawns  and  twilights  soothes  and  dazzles 
our  eyes,  but  not  once  do  we  feel  a  throb  of 
living  emotion.  Our  ears  are  enraptured  with 
the  music  of  his  lines,  we  feel  the  wonderful 

113 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

rhythm,  swing,  and  beat  of  phrase  on  phrase, 
but  not  once  do  we  know  the  poignancy  of  the 
familiar.  It  is  all  apart.  In  his  scenes,  in  the 
times  he  has  given  for  his  actions,  in  the  very 
costumes  of  his  people  there  is  an  effort  made  to 
universalize  by  choosing  something  which  is 
typical  of  the  whole  and  yet  so  different  from 
each  part  that  it  cannot  be  confused  with  reality. 
One  cannot  universalize  a  thought  by  making 
it  unlike ;  it  must  be  more  like  than  the  thing 
itself.  It  must  not  be  different;  it  must  be 
even  more  than  the  same. 

It  may  be  thought  that  I  have  devoted 
much  space  to  destroying  that  which  to  all  of 
us  has  been  beautiful.  I  have  not  intended 
to  do  so.  It  seems  necessary  to  me  to  point 
out  that  the  great  fundamental  error  which 
Dunsany  has  made  is  that  he  has  set  himself 
to  find  the  least  common  multiple  instead  of  the 
greatest  common  divisor.  In  doing  this  he  has 
imposed  a  limitation  upon  his  work  which  must 
be  recognized.  He  deals  in  the  most  delicate 
tints  and  shadings ;  his  writing  is  a  marvelous 
pastel,  but  it  lacks  the  vigor  and  lasting  power 
of  oil.  And  now  having  said  all  this  I  will  ask 
you  to  forget  it,  if  you  have  not  so  far  disa- 
114 


HIS    PHILOSOPHY 


greed  with  me  as  to  make  such  forgetting  un- 
necessary. It  is  interesting  and  even  important 
that  any  work  of  art  should  be  made  to  stand 
the  test  of  analysis,  and  of  comparison,  but 
this  test  may  be  considered  as  a  dose  of 
peculiarly  nasty  medicine  which  once  taken  is 
soon  forgotten.  It  is  not  what  Dunsany  should 
be,  or  what  we  would  have  him  be  that' con- 
cerns us.  It  is  what  he  is.  Once  the  limitations 
of  a  work  are  defined  there  should  be  no  com- 
plaining because  the  nature  of  that  work  does 
not  extend  beyond  the  limitations.  We  may 
regret  that  blue  is  not  red,  but  it  would  surely 
be  captious  to  insist  just  because  it  is  not, 
that  blue  is  an  imperfect  and  unpleasant 
color.  Lord  Dunsany  has  given  us  much  that 
we  stand  greatly  in  need  of;  surely  it  would 
be  ungracious  to  complain  because  it  is  not 
more.  In  an  all  too  sordid  day  and  age,  when 
the  romance  of  the  open  road  seems  to  have 
given  place  to  the  romance  of  the  counting- 
house,  he  has  opened  anew  for  us  the  door  of 
wonder.  For  this  we  can  never  be  too  thank- 
ful. Dunsany  has  played  the  perfect  host 
for  us  in  his  magic  land;  he  has  given  us  of 
his  best,  and  we  have  found  that  that  best  is 

115 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

truly  beautiful.  He  has  done  a  fine,  it  may 
not  be  too  much  to  say  a  great  work,  and  he 
has  done  it  with  the  deftness  of  the  perfect 
craftsman.  And  now  it  is  well  to  let  the  man 
speak  for  himself ;  it  is  only  just  that  his  voice 
should  be  heard  in  a  discussion  which  touches 
him  so  nearly.  The  following  extracts  are  from 
an  article  contributed  by  Lord  Dunsany  to 
the  National  Review  of  London  during  1911,  and 
the  title  of  the  article  is  "Romance  and  the 
Modern  Stage." 

"Something  must  be  wrong  with  an  age  whose 
drama  deserts  romance;  and  a  cause  that  soonest 
occurs  to  one  is  the  alarming  spread  of  advertisement, 
its  frightful  vulgarity,  and  its  whole-hearted  devotion 
to  the  snaring  of  money. 

"What  advertisement  (the  screaming  voice  of  our 
age)  seeks  to  be  other  than  a  lie,  and  if  the  actual 
statement  is  literally  true,  then  all  the  more  must 
the  suggestion  correct  this  error  by  being  especially 
false. 

"Everywhere  the  sacredness  of  business  is  preached, 
everywhere  it  is  pointed  to  as  an  end,  to  this  great 
error  advertisements  testify  alike  in  all  places;  chil- 
dren are  brought  up  on  them ;  for  everything  sublime 
or  beautiful  that  any  city  shows  them  twenty  times 
do  they  see  far  more  noticeable,  some  placard  sordid 
with  avarice.  Advertisements  drop  from  the  books 
that  children  read,  they  confront  them  in  their  homes. 
116 


HIS    PHILOSOPHY 


They  stand  large  between  them  and  the  scenery  when 
they  travel.  Will  anyone  say  that  their  preaching  is 
neglected;  not  unless  the  bill-sticker  has  lost  his 
cunning.  Those  who  are  thus  educated  will  learn 
to  bow  down  to  business.  When  most  we  need  ro- 
mance, romance  has  been  frightened  away. 

"As  he  steals  over  dewy  hills  in  the  dusk  of  summer 
evenings  he  sees  those  placards  standing  in  the  fields 
and  praising  Mammon;  to  Romance  they  seem  the 
battlements  of  the  fortress  of  Avarice,  and  he  is  gone 
at  once. 

"It  is  not  from  business  that  romance  has  fled,  but 
from  the  worshiping  of  it ;  the  calf  was  not  an  unclean 
beast  among  the  Israelites,  but  when  they  worshiped 
the  Golden  Calf  then  God  deserted  them. 

"To-day  a  work  of  art  must  be  defended  in  terms  of 
business.  'What's  the  use  of  it?'  they  will  say  of 
some  painting,  and  woe  to  the  artist  who  cannot 
answer,  '  It  brings  me  in  much.' 

"A  year  or  so  ago  this  age  of  ours  spoke  through  the 
pen  of  some  writer  of  a  brief  letter  to  a  journal.  The 
fate  of  Crosby  Hall  was  being  discussed.  I  do  not 
remember  the  arguments;  it  was  beautiful,  it  was 
historic,  and  in  the  way.  And  the  age  spoke  and  said, 
'  Let  us  have  a  little  more  business  and  less  sentiment.' 

"That  was  the  great  error  put  into  a  sentence  which 
the  age  inspired  its  prophet  to  write  to  the  press. 

"Human  happiness  is  nothing  more  than  a  fairy 
ring  of  human  sentiments  dancing  in  the  moonlight. 
The  wand  that  compels  them  may  possibly  be  of  gold. 
Business,  perhaps,  may  be  needed  to  make  them  dance, 
but  to  think  that  business,  the  possible  means,  should 

117 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

be  more  desirable  than  the  certain  end  showed  that 
that  obscure  writer  whom  the  age  had  inspired  was 
ignorant  firstly  even  of  himself  and  the  little  fanciful 
things  that  he  intended  some  day  to  do.  Thus  is  the 
end  given  up  for  the  sake  of  the  means,  and  truth  and 
beauty  sacrificed  every  day  upon  innumerable  counters, 
until  the  generation  fostered  among  these  things  says 
to  the  artist,  'What  do  you  get  by  it?'  and  to  the  poet, 
'Does  it  pay?' 

"In  discussing  the  state  of  the  stage  one  has  to 
watch  the  affairs  of  its  neighboring  kingdoms,  the 
stalls  and  the  pit.  If  their  conditions  are  sordid, 
romance  will  not  easily  flourish  across  the  border. 

"The  drama  is  the  mirror  of  life  if  not  something 
more.  And  an  age  that  paints  its  woodwork  red  to 
ape  mahogany,  that  makes  respected  fortunes  by 
mixing  up  sulphuric  acid  with  glucose  and  calling  the 
product  beer,  the  age  of  flannelette  and  the  patent 
pill  .  .  .  such  an  age  may  well  have  such  a  drama  as 
will  be  pleasant  and  acceptable  to  the  doers  of  these 
things:  for  when  insincerity  has  once  raised  up  its 
honored  head  in  politics  and  commerce,  as  it  has,  and 
in  daily  life  as  well,  it  is  quite  certain  that  its  wor- 
shippers will  demand  a  drama  sufficiently  stale  and 
smug  to  suit  their  lives. 

"In  any  beautiful  age  a  poet  is  scarcely  noticed,  he 
is  the  natural  product  of  the  beauty  of  the  time,  he 
is  no  more  than  the  lilac  in  the  Spring;  only  in  evil 
days  does  he  appear  half-witted,  having  the  foolish 
look  of  a  lily  upon  a  pavement. 

"I  am  quite  ignorant  of  the  cost  or  feasibility  of 
risking  new  experiments  in  the  theater.     I  have  no 

118 


HIS    PHILOSOPHY 


means  or  method  of  producing  romantic  drama.  I 
should  not  dare  to  advise  and  have  nothing  to  say 
except  to  ask  that  the  theater  be  set  up  against  the 
false,  that  the  highest  realism,  the  realism  of  the  poets, 
who  see  the  whole  of  life's  journey,  be  set  up  against 
the  lower  realism  that  sees  only  how  man  equips  him- 
self with  morals,  and  money,  and  custom  for  the  journey ; 
but  knows  not  where  the  journey  leads  nor  why  man 
wants  to  go.  That  is  what  we  need  more  to-day  than 
in  any  age. 

"But  romance  has  not  been  driven  from  the  stage 
only  by  those  that  like  the  false  and  the  sham  —  obvi- 
ously among  these  romance  will  not  abide  for  romance 
is  the  most  real  thing  in  life  —  but  he  has  been  jostled 
out  of  the  way  by  the  enemies  of  the  shams  that  are 
too  busy  trying  to  overthrow  the  false  to  have  leisure 
to  let  their  fancies  dance  on  the  hills.  For  our  age  is 
full,  of  new  problems  that  we  have  not  as  yet  found 
time  to  understand,  that  bewilder  and  absorb  us,  the 
gift  of  matter  enthroned  and  endowed  by  man  with 
life ;  I  mean  iron  vitalized  by  steam  and  rushing  from 
city  to  city  and  owning  men  for  slaves.  I  know  the 
boons  that  machinery  has  conferred  on  man,  all  tyrants 
have  boons  to  confer,  but  service  to  a  dynasty  of  steam 
and  steel  is  a  hard  service,  and  gives  little  leisure  to 
fancy  to  flit  from  field  to  field.  Machinery  has  given 
us  many  problems  to  solve,  and  it  may  be  a  long  time 
yet  before  we  make  the  ultimate  discovery  that  the 
ways  and  means  of  living  are  less  important  than  life. 
When  every  man  has  recognized  that  for  himself,  we 
shall  come  out  on  the  other  side  of  all  our  problems, 
and  laying  aside  our  universal  interest  in  the  latest 

119 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

information  about  the  newest  question  upon  any 
subject  that  arises  anywhere,  we  shall  come  to  know  a 
little  about  something  once  more,  as  our  forefathers  did 
before  the  days  of  encyclopedias.  Then  we  shall  have 
drama  again  that  shall  concern  itself  with  life  rather 
than  with  our  anxious  imcertainties  about  it.  But 
the  discoveries  of  steam  and  electricity  which  have 
given  life  to  matter,  are  as  perplexing  to  every  one  of 
us  as  what  came  out  of  the  bottle  that  the  Arabian 
fisherman  found,  and  we  have  not  yet  recovered  from 
our  perplexity.  I  am  not  criticising  machinery.  I 
stand  in  awe  of  so  terrible  a  genie  whose  shadow  has 
darkened  all  the  midlands  of  England ;  but  I  mention  it 
to  explain  the  newness  and  suddenness  of  our  problems, 
our  unfamiliarity  with  ourselves  and  the  puzzled  ex- 
pression on  the  faces  of  all  who  deal  with  these  things, 
and  the  difference  between  the  stories  we  tell,  whereat 
romance  yawns  loudly,  and  the  simpler  tales  and  songs 
of  more  rural  people. 

"Romance  is  so  inseparable  from  life  that  all  we 
need  to  obtain  romantic  drama  is  for  the  dramatist  to 
find  any  age  and  any  country  where  life  is  not  too 
thickly  veiled  and  cloaked  with  puzzles  and  conventions, 
in  fact  to  find  a  people  that  is  not  in  the  agonies  of  self 
consciousness.  For  myself  I  think  that  it  is  simpler  to 
imagine  such  a  people,  as  it  saves  the  trouble  of  reading 
to  find  a  romantic  age,  or  the  trouble  of  making  a 
journey  to  lands  where  there  is  no  press. 

"It  is  easy  for  a  philanthropist  to  endow  a  hospital, 
and  easy  for  a  benevolent  man  to  work  for  the  sake  of 
the  poor,  their  goal  is  near  to  them,  logic  supports 
them  and  reasonable  men  applaud  them  upon  the  way. 

120 


HIS    PHILOSOPHY 


But  the  way  of  the  poet  is  the  way  of  the  martyr.  The 
greater  his  work  the  more  infinite  his  goal.  His  own 
eyes  cannot  assess  it.  There  is  little  logic  in  a  lyric, 
and  notoriously  little  money.  How  can  an  age  which 
values  all  things  in  gold  understand  so  unvalued  a 
thing  as  a  romantic  fancy? 

"The  kind  of  drama  that  we  most  need  to-day  seems 
to  me  to  be  the  kind  that  will  build  new  worlds  for  the 
fancy,  for  the  spirit  as  much  as  the  body  sometimes 
needs  a  change  of  scene. 

"Every  morning  railway  trains,  telegraphs,  and 
motors  await  to  spread  the  latest  information  every- 
where. Even  were  this  information  of  value  there 
would  be  more  than  men's  minds  could  digest.  I  do 
not  object  to  detailed  accounts  of  murder  trials,  life 
is  at  a  high  tension  in  a  court  where  a  man  is  on  trial 
for  his  life ;  what  does  the  harm  is  meaningless  reports 
of  cricket  matches  spun  out  with  insipid  phrases  and 
newly  invented  sham  slang,  which  fill  a  people's  mind 
with  nothingness,  and  are  widely  read  by  men  who  no 
longer  die,  but  pass  away  at  their  residence.  Phrases 
are  parasites  in  the  fur  of  thought  and  in  time  they 
destroy  the  thing  upon  which  they  feed.  Many  and 
many  an  erstwhile  clever  head  pours  forth  phrase  after 
phrase  picked  up  from  to-day  and  yesterday,  behind 
which  thought  is  dead,  and  only  the  parasites  left. 
Too  much  information  about  the  fads  and  fashions  of 
empty  lives  is  stealing  year  by  year  the  traditions  and 
simplicity  even  of  rural  people.  Yet  places  remain 
unaffected  by  all  these  things,  these  are  the  hunting 
ground  of  the  dramatist.  Then  there  is  the  other 
world  —  the  world  of  fancy.     It  seems  to  me  that  a 

121 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

play  that  is  true  to  fancy  is  as  true  as  one  that  is  true 
to  modem  times,  for  fancy  is  quite  as  real  as  more  solid 
things  and  every  bit  as  necessary  to  a  man.  A  fancy 
of  some  sort  is  the  mainspring  and  end  of  every  human 
ambition,  and  a  writer  who  turns  away  from  conven- 
tions and  problems  to  build  with  no  other  bricks  than 
fancy  and  beauty  is  doing  no  trivial  work,  his  raw 
material  is  the  dreams,  and  whims,  and  shadowy 
impulses  in  the  soul  of  man,  out  of  which  all  else  ariseth." 

Here  we  may  see  Dunsany  as  a  critic,  less 
of  the  drama  than  of  the  age  which  begets  it, 
and  less  of  the  age  than  of  the  philosophy  which 
underlies  its  spirit.  One  is  inclined  to  wonder 
too  whether  the  fact  of  Dunsany's  critical 
ability  does  not  in  some  wise  explain  many 
other  things  about  his  work.  Often  we  find 
him  in  a  critical  mood  in  his  tales  and  plays, 
and  we  realize  again  that  good  criticism  is 
always  creative  in  the  highest  sense.  But 
this  tendency  on  the  part  of  Dunsany  empha- 
sizes the  fact  that  his  outlook  is  essentially 
intellectual.  Dunsany  realizes,  but  he  does 
not  experience:  he  perceives,  but  he  does  not 
feel.  In  his  desire  to  get  away  from  the  life 
of  to-day  he  ends  almost  by  getting  away  from 
all  life.  His  drama  is  that  of  imagination 
coated  with  a  veneer  of  observation,  albeit 
122 


HIS    PHILOSOPHY 


this  same  observation  is  of  the  keenest  and 
most  sensitive  description. 

In  his  disregard  of  human  relations  Lord 
Dunsany  may  be  compared  to  many  of  those 
who  have  enlivened  literature  with  the  creations 
of  pure  fancy.  Of  such  are  Hans  Andersen, 
and  Grimm ;  Lewis  Carroll,  and  Barrie  like- 
wise belong  in  this  category,  but  none  of  these 
have  proceeded  to  the  length  which  has  made 
Dunsany  unique,  certainly  in  the  contemporary, 
and  probably  in  the  previous  literary  age. 
We  have  had  a  literature  based  on  folk-lore 
more  than  once;  the  Greek  drama  partook 
of  this  element,  as  has  the  literature  of  Ger- 
many and  the  northern  countries  from  time  to 
time ;  it  is  to  be  found  to-day  in  the  work  of 
nearly  all  the  Irish  poets  and  dramatists.  But 
in  every  instance  this  folk-lore  has  been  the 
gradual  growth  of  centuries  until  finally  it  has 
been  preserved  for  all  time  upon  the  printed 
page.  But  with  Dunsany  it  is  very  obviously 
quite  different.  He  has  created  a  folk-lore,  or 
better,  a  mythology  of  his  own,  and  in  so  doing 
he  has  managed  to  invest  it  with  some  of  the 
actual  atmosphere  of  antiquity.  The  whole 
conception  is  a  most  extraordinary  tour  de  force. 

123 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

This  creation  has  offered  him  unlimited  scope 
for  pure  flights  of  fancy;  he  is  bound  down 
by  no  possible  restriction  of  time  or  place,  or 
adherence  to  tradition.  He  makes  his  tradi- 
tions as  he  goes  along.  Actual  folk-lore  is 
always  closely  entwined  with  the  actual  re- 
ligion of  its  people,  and  thus  it  proceeds  not 
only  from  what  men  think,  but  from  what  they 
feel.  An  artificial  folk-lore  such  as  Dunsany's, 
being  the  product  of  the  imagination  of  one 
man,  is  purely  mental,  and  thus  fails  to  satisfy 
on  one  side  no  matter  how  beautiful  it  may  be 
in  itself.  Imagination  is  entirely  a  mental 
quality.  And  so,  as  the  greatest  art  must 
always  be  emotion  expressed  in  terms  of  the 
intellect,  we  must  convict  Dimsany  of  half 
measures.  He  deals  not  with  emotion,  but 
with  states  of  mind,  and  be  it  said  here  again 
that,  lacking  or  not  in  the  bigger  and  more 
vital  quality,  that  which  he  has  given  us  is  of 
the  most  surpassing  beauty.  It  is  the  art  of 
the  intellectual  aristocrat  first,  last,  and  always, 
and  therein  lies  its  weakness ;  but  such  as  it  is, 
it  is  a  beautiful  art.  It  is  not  the  art  of  one 
who  feels,  it  is  not  even  the  art  of  one  who 
thinks,  but  it  is  the  art  of  one  who  dreams. 
124 


HIS    PHILOSOPHY 


One  could  almost  wish  to  discard  all  the  rest 
and  to  be  content  with  dreams  alone,  Dunsany's 
are  so  potent  in  their  magic  power. 

Dramatically  too  there  is  a  loss  to  be  noted. 
Dunsany  sometimes  disregards  a  dramatic  situ- 
ation in  the  very  fear  that  it  will  conceive  a 
human  emotion  of  violence  at  variance  with 
his  established  code.  There  is  always  one 
scene  in  ^^King  Argimenes  and  the  Unknown 
Warrior"  for  which  we  look  from  the  very  out- 
set, and  which  never  comes.  It  seems  almost 
important  enough  to  be  called  a  scene  a  faire. 
This  is  the  meeting  of  the  two  Kings,  Argimenes 
and  Damiak.  What  a  wonderful  situation  it 
would  be,  and  how  many  notes  could  be  touched 
upon  in  its  rising  scale.  But  it  is  not  there. 
For  the  rest  I  have  called  attention  to  them  as 
occasion  arose  as  we  discussed  the  plays,  so 
there  is  no  need  to  consider  them  further  here. 
Whatever  his  shortcomings  as  a  dramatist, 
and  there  lives  not  one,  nor  has  one  ever  lived, 
in  which  some  flaws  cannot  be  found,  Dunsany 
has  done  the  remarkable  thing  of  writing  plays 
which  are  startling  in  their  dramatic  power  and 
really  fine  in  their  poetry.  They  are  big  in 
conception,   and   artistic  in  execution.    Their 

125 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

dialogue  might  serve  as  a  model  for  many 
dramatists  who  are  accounted  of  more  impor- 
tance than  is  Dunsany,  and  their  color  and 
atmosphere  exert  at  times  an  almost  hypnotic 
effect. 

It  may  be  interesting  to  see  what  Dunsany 
has  to  say  concerning  a  fellow  worker,  Synge, 
no  less,  in  the  London  Saturday  Review  during 
1910.  The  following  bit  is  taken  from  a  review 
of  Synge's  ''Deirdre  of  the  Sorrows",  his  finest 
work  so  far  as  regards  beauty  of  expression. 

"It  is  so  long  now  since  Pegasus  shied  at  a  factory 
whistle  or  at  one  of  our  own  ha-penny  newspapers 
blowing  down  the  road,  and  soared  and  left  the  people 
and  remained  aloof  from  them  the  way  he  was  wont  not 
to  do  —  for  the  Elizabethans  trotted  him  in  and  out 
wherever  men  sang,  or  swore,  or  followed  their  callings 
—  it  is  so  long  now  since  his  ears  caught  the  sound  of 
the  streets  that  it  is  strange  to  think  of  a  poet  only 
over  the  Irish  sea  writing  in  a  peasantry's  common 
tongue.  And  this  is  what  J.  M.  Synge  was  able  to  do 
as  Homer  was  able,  and  as  Keats,  for  instance,  and 
PVancis  Thompson,  were  not. 

"Synge  is  never  far  away  from  the  fields  of  men,  his 
is  not  the  inspiration  of  the  skylark  remote  from  the 
earth;  our  wonder  at  his  fancy  is  as  our  wonder  at 
the  flight  of  the  white  owl  low  down  near  beautiful 
fields." 

126 


HIS    PHILOSOPHY 


For  not  a  little  time  past  we  have  been 
possessed  of  a  drama  which  in  its  effort  to 
mirror  life  has  gradually  become  more  and 
more  photographic  and  microcosmic.  This  is 
assm'edly  the  art  of  a  mechanical  age,  an  age 
not  of  creation  but  of  reproduction.  Our 
music  is  provided  by  the  phonograph  and  the 
mechanical  piano;  our  painting  is  given  us 
through  the  medium  of  the  illustrated  supple- 
ments of  the  Sunday  papers;  our  drama  has 
degenerated  to  that  point  where  in  its  effort 
to  be  "rear'  it  has  ceased  to  be  anything  more 
than  that.  What  a  boon  it  was  to  the  man  of 
the  theater  when  he  found  that  that  which 
was  impossible  of  achievement  on  the  stage 
came  easily  within  his  grasp  in  the  moving-  j 
pictures.  Here  at  least  we  have  real  trees,  real 
houses,  and  real  battles.  The  only  thing  left 
to  wish  for  is  that  the  actors  be  given  real 
guns  with  real  powder  and  bullets,  and  that 
they  really  discharge  these  weapons  at  one 
another.  Perhaps  in  that  way  we  may,  through 
this  very  obsession  for  reality,  be  rid  of  some 
of  the  most  unreal  things  that  ever  desecrated 
the  name  of  art.  This  realism,  or  naturalism 
as  it  may  best  be  called,  rarely  has  penetrated 

127 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

beneath  the  surface  of  humanity,  and  though 
it  has  on  occasion  cut  below  the  skin  it  has 
never  yet  touched  on  that  sacred,  and  therefore 
shocking  thing  of  which  modem  society  stands  so 
greatly  in  dread.  If  it  ever  had  so  touched,  the 
white  heat  of  the  spirit  would  have  withered  it 
away.  We  have  dealt  with  the  isolated  example, 
with  the  abnormal  instance ;  why,  no  one  can 
tell  unless  we  admit  to  a  morbid  curiosity.  It  is 
the  age  of  science,  and  we  have  applied  the 
rules  of  science  to  the  principles  of  art  —  and 
we  have  failed  most  miserably.  There  is  every 
indication  that  this  phase  is  well  on  its  decline. 
There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  the  roman- 
tic renaissance  for  which  we  have  been  waiting 
is  at  last  within  reach.  We  have  a  "new  art 
of  the  theater"  which  is  in  reality  an  old  art 
revitalized  and  brought  up  to  date.  Let  us 
be  thankful  for  it.  It  is  what  we  need.  We 
may  even  begin  to  see  signs  of  a  "new"  drama, 
and  for  this  let  us  be  thankful  also.  We  need 
it  as  a  dying  man  needs  life. 

We  call  one  man  a  realist  because  he  deals 

in    strange    mental   conditions,    and    we   call 

another  man  a  romanticist  because  he  deals 

with  common  emotional    conditions.     Person- 

128 


HIS    PHILOSOPHY 


ally  I  am  strongly  of  the  conviction  that  the 
romanticist  is  the  more  real  of  the  two  by  far. 
Lord  Dunsany  does  not  come  under  either 
heading  according  to  this  definition.  That 
is  because  both  the  realist  and  the  romanticist 
deal  with  life,  though  from  different  points  of 
view.  Lord  Dunsany  deals  not  with  life,  but 
with  dreams.  For  long  it  has  been  forgotten 
that  there  were  dreams,  except  when  one  had 
eaten  too  much  lobster  in  some  gilded  restaurant 
after  seeing  a  bad  play.  And  then  the  dreams 
were  not  such  as  to  make  one  desire  them. 
It  had  almost  passed  beyond  our  recollection 
that  there  was  a  land  in  which  realist  and 
romanticist  ceased  to  exist  in  themselves  and 
blended  into  one.  Dunsany  has  taught  us 
again  the  name  of  that  land,  and  he  has  called 
it  Wonder.  There  we  find  no  dramatist  who 
may  be  labelled  with  a  scientific  name;  there 
is  only  the  dreamer.  To  him  all  things  are 
possible,  and  the  stranger  they  are  the  more 
probable  is  their  happening.  As  in  this  life 
of  the  flesh  we  catch  fleeting  glimpses  of  that 
other  life  which  has  no  boundaries,  so  in  that 
life  do  we  see  now  and  again  something  which 
may  remind  us  of  the  existence  we  have  left 

129 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

behind.  The  dream  world  is  not  empty  for 
us ;  the  land  of  wonder  is  peopled  thickly  with 
those  who  are  glad  to  give  us  welcome;  the 
people  of  the  hills  are  there  and  waiting. 

Dunsany  has  opened  for  us  the  great  gates 
leading  into  that  other  world  so  near,  and  yet 
so  distant  from  us  all.  Like  all  the  little  people 
his  creatures  have  no  souls,  for  if  they  had 
then  Time  might  overtake  them.  For  the  only 
thing  in  all  the  whole  wide  world  that  is  im- 
perishable, the  only  thing  that  Time  stands 
baffled  before,  is  a  dream,  even  a  little  one. 
And  that  is  most  of  all  what  Dunsany  has 
told  us,  that  a  too  great  intensity  of  interest 
with  the  things  of  everyday  life,  the  transient 
things,  is  just  so  much  ground  given  up  to  that 
great  scourge  of  all  the  ages.  Time.  In  our 
fight  with  him  he  hurls  the  years  at  us,  and  our 
houses  crumble,  our  cities  fall  into  ruin,  and 
our  civilization  passes  away.  All  our  learning, 
all  our  wealth,  all  our  accomplishment  cannot 
turn  him  even  so  much  as  a  minute  from  his  path. 
And  all  we  have  with  which  to  oppose  him  are 
dreams.    Only  against  them  is  Time  powerless. 

The  world  is  very  tired  of  thinking,  especially 
about  itself,  and  we  who  are  each  a  part  of  the 
130 


HIS    PHILOSOPHY 


world  are  all  tired  too.  We  have  thought  so 
much  lately.  There  seems  to  be  hardly  a 
human  problem  left  untouched,  and  uninvesti- 
gated, and  there  seems  to  be  hardly  a  human 
problem  solved.  Perhaps  we  have  thought  too 
much  and  dreamed  too  little.  We  have  passed 
from  the  drama  of  the  boudoir  to  that  of  the 
laboratory  and  the  dissecting  room;  it  may 
well  be  that  the  time  has  come  when  these  things 
shall  leave  us,  when  we  shall  pass  from  the 
drama  of  the  moment  to  the  drama  of  all  time, 
and  from  the  destruction  of  little  things  to 
the  preservation  of  great  things. 

It  seems  to  me  that  there  must  be  no  one 
who  can  see  the  plays  of  Lord  Dunsany  or 
read  them  without  feeling  an  immense  sense 
of  relief  as  at  the  release  of  some  intolerable 
burden.  His  plays  and  tales  are  told  to  us 
as  very  few  could  have  told  them  for  more 
than  many  years.  He  is  one  of  the  great 
figures  in  a  great  literary  movement,  —  in  some 
ways  he  is  the  greatest  figure,  —  and  whatever 
Time  may  do  to  blot  from  the  memory  of  man 
that  which  has  passed,  I  think  that  the  work 
of  Dunsany  will  remain  for  always.  For  he 
has   dreamed,   and   dreams   are   imperishable. 

131 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

He  has  shown  us  beauty,  which  is  truth,  and 
truth  is  immortal.  And  so,  while  Lord  Dun- 
sany  will  in  due  course  come  to  "pass  away  at 
his  residence",  it  is  quite  as  certain  that  he  will 
never  die. 


132 


IV 

Letters 

The  following  letters  are  taken  from  a  correspondence 
between  Mr.  Stuart  Walker,  who  has  staged  three  of 
the  Dunsany  plays  in  his  Portmanteau  Theater,  and 
Lord  Dunsany.  The  letters  throw  light  on  not  a 
little  connected  with  the  plays,  in  acting,  staging,  and 
in  the  philosophy  underlying  them.  Lord  Dunsany's 
letters  are  given  verbatim,  and  those  of  Mr.  Walker 
have  been  relieved  only  of  such  matter  as  did  not  seem 
to  have  a  direct  bearing  on  the  subject  at  hand.  The 
letters  speak  for  themselves,  and  require  no  further 
introduction  or  comment. 

Excerpts  from  a  letter  from  Lord  Dunsany  to  Mrs. 
Emma  Garrett  Boyd 

Not  dated. 
....  There  are  many  others  who  know  me 
and  know  my  work,  and  a  great  many  that  know  me 
and  never  heard  of  my  work,  and  many  others  to 
whom  my  work  is  a  harmless  eccentricity  or  a  chance 
occupation  less  important  than  golf. 

133 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

....  I  was  wounded  less  than  three  weeks  ago. 
The  bullet  has  been  extracted  and  I  am  healing  up 
rapidly.  I  am  also  under  orders  for  France  as  soon 
as  I  have  recovered. 

....  Sometimes  I  think  that  no  man  is  taken 
hence  until  he  has  done  the  work  that  he  is  here  to 
do,  and,  looking  back  on  five  battles  and  other 
escapes  from  death,  this  theory  seems  only  plausible ; 
but  how  can  one  hold  it  when  one  thinks  of  the  deaths 
of  Shelley  and  Keats! 

But  In  case  I  shall  not  be  able  to  explain  my  work, 
I  think  the  first  thing  to  tell  them  is  that  it  does 
not  need  explanation.  One  does  not  explain  a  sun- 
set nor  does  one  need  to  explain  a  work  of  art.  One 
may  analyse,  of  course;  that  is  profitable  and  in- 
teresting, but  the  growing  demand  to  be  told  What 
It's  All  About  before  one  can  even  enjoy,  is  becom- 
ing absurd. 

Don't  let  them  hunt  for  allegories.  I  may  have 
written  an  allegory  at  some  time,  but  if  I  have,  it 
was  a  quite  obvious  one,  and  as  a  general  rule,  I 
have  nothing  to  do  with  allegories. 

What  is  an  allegory?  A  man  wants  the  streets 
to  be  better  swept  in  his  town,  or  he  wants  his 
neighbors  to  have  rather  cleaner  morals.  He  can't 
say  so  straight  out,  because  he  might  be  had  up 
for  libel,  so  he  says  what  he  has  to  say,  but  he  says 
it  about  some  extinct  king  in  Babylon,  but  he's 
thinking  of  his  one  horse  town  all  the  time.  Now 
when  I  write  of  Babylon,  there  are  people  who  can 
134 


LETTERS 


not  see  that  I  write  of  it  for  love  of  Babylon's  ways, 
and  they  think  Fm  thinking  of  London  still  and  our 
beastly  Pariiament. 

Only  I  get  further  east  than  Babylon,  even  to 
Kingdoms  that  seem  to  lie  in  the  twilight  beyond 
the  East  of  the  World.  I  want  to  write  about  men 
and  women  and  the  great  forces  that  have  been  with 
them  from  their  cradle  up  —  forces  that  the  centuries 
have  neither  aged  nor  weakened.  Not  about  people 
who  are  so  interested  about  the  latest  mascot  or 
motor  that  not  enough  remains  when  the  trivial  is 
sifted  from  them. 

I  will  say  first  that  in  my  plays  I  tell  very  simple 
stories,  —  so  simple  that  sometimes  people  of  this 
complex  age,  being  brought  up  in  intricacies,  even 
fail  to  understand  them.  Secondly,  no  man  ever 
wrote  a  simple  story  yet,  because  he  is  bound  to 
color  it  with  his  own  experience.  Take  my  "Gods 
of  the  Mountain."  Some  beggars,  being  hard  up, 
pretend  to  be  gods.  Then  they  get  all  that  they 
want.  But  Destiny,  Nemesis,  the  Gods,  punish 
them  by  turning  them  into  the  very  idols  they  desire 
to  be. 

First  of  all  you  have  a  simple  tale  told  dramati- 
cally, and  along  that  you  have  hung,  without  any 
deliberate  intention  of  mine  —  so  far  as  I  know  — 
a  truth,  not  true  to  London  only  or  to  New  York  or 
to  one  municipal  party  but  to  the  experience  of 
man.  That  is  the  kind  of  way  that  man  does  get 
hit  by  destiny.    But  mind  you,  that  is  all  uncon- 

135 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

scious,  though  inevitable.  I  am  not  trying  to  teach 
anybody  anything.  I  merely  set  out  to  make  a 
work  of  art  out  of  a  simple  theme,  and  God  knows 
we  want  works  of  art  in  this  age  of  corrugated  iron. 
How  many  people  hold  the  error  that  Shakespeare 
was  of  the  school  room!  Whereas  he  was  of  the 
playground,  as  all  artists  are. 

Dunsany. 

Stuart  Walker  to  Lady  Dunsany 

June  6,  1916. 
My  dear  Lady  Dunsany : 

A  cable  from  Miss  Wollersen  two  days  ago  had 
informed  me  of  Lord  Dunsany's  misfortune.  I 
trust  that  he  is  fairly  on  the  road  to  complete 
recovery;  it  seems  a  great  tragedy  that  one  with 
universal  messages  should  be  silenced  by  rebellions 
and  wars. 

I  have  read  "The  Tents  of  the  Arabs."  It  is 
beautifully  poetic  but  its  lack  of  action  makes  it 
unavailable  for  me  now.  I  have  several  plays  of 
the  type  in  preparation  and  I  have  to  be  careful  not 
to  attempt  too  many  wherein  the  only  movement 
is  of  the  mind  and  spirit.  But  should  the  play  still 
be  free  at  the  end  of  next  season  I  should  like  to 
consider  it  again. 

Before  closing  my  letter  I  want  to  tell  you  that 
the  costume  plates  for  "The  Golden  Doom"  are 
very  promising.    Mr.  Frank  Zimmerer,  the  artist, 
136 


LETTERS 


is  a  most  capable  young  man  and  he  uses  Lord 
Dunsany's  green  with  great  effectiveness.  I  call 
it  the  Dunsany  Green.  How  else  could  I  designate 
it  ?  —  the  Green  gods,  Klesh,  the  green  sword  in 
"King  Argimenes",  the  green  lantern  outside 
Skarui's  door! 

With  every  good  wish  for  Lord  Dunsany's  com- 
plete and  rapid  recovery, 

Stuart  Walker. 

Lord  Dunsany  to  Stuart  Walker 

June  28,  1916. 
Dear  Mr.  Walker : 

I  am  still  in  Ireland  as  I  am  still  recovering  from 
my  wound,  though  I  am  very  nearly  ready  to  go  now. 
Had  I  not  been  wounded  I  should  now  be  in  the 
trenches.  So  I  am  answering  your  letter  to  Lady 
Dunsany.  Hughes  Massie,  I  am  glad  to  hear,  are 
arranging  for  you  to  have  "  The  Gods  of  the  Moun- 
tain. "  .  .  .  .  Whenever  I  may  be  abroad  or  dead, 
Lady  Dunsany  will  make  all  arrangements. 
"Argimenes"  was  the  first  play  I  ever  wrote  about 
my  own  country.  "The  GHttering  Gate"  I  had 
already  written,  chiefly  to  please  Yeats,  but  that 
play  never  interested  me.  "Argimenes"  was  the 
first  play  laid  in  the  native  land  of  my  spirit,  and 
of  course  it  has  a  first  play's  imperfections,  the  most 
visible  of  which  is  I  fear  a  downward  trend  from  a 
fine  scene  of  the  King  and  his  bone  to  a  mere  round- 

137 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

ing  off  and  ceasing,  instead  of  rising  the  whole  way 
like  "The  Gods  of  the  Mountain."  Indeed  I 
think  I  wrote  the  whole  play  from  a  sudden  fancy 
I  had  of  a  king  in  rags  gnawing  a  bone,  but  that 
fancy  may  have  come  from  an  inner  memory  of 
a  time  when  I  too  was  hungry,  sitting  and  sleep- 
ing upon  the  ground  with  other  dishevelled  men 
in  Africa. 

The  last  stage  direction  in  this  play  {in  a  voice  of 
protest)  was  suggested  to  me  by  a  producer  and 
pleased  me  at  the  time  but  I  almost  think  my  own 
idea  was  better.  I  made  Zarb  say  "Majesty"  in 
awe.  That  he  should  throw  away  good  bones  reveals 
to  Zarb,  as  nothing  else  has  done,  the  pinnacle  to 
which  Argimenes  has  really  risen.  The  other  way 
is  funny,  but  I  think  I  ought  to  have  stuck  to  my 
own  inspiration.  I  amuse  myself  sometimes  by 
cutting  seals  on  silver  and  on  the  chance  that  it 
may  amuse  you  if  it  arrives  unbroken  I  will  put  one 
of  them  or  more  on  this  envelope. 

Though  the  world  may  be  growing  more  barbarous 
in  Flanders,  what  you  tell  me  of  your  aspirations 
shows  that  elsewhere  it  is  becoming  more  civilized. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  not  the  ruins  of  Ypres  or 
a  street  in  Dublin  that  shows  the  high  water  mark 
of  our  times'  barbarity ;  it  is  to  be  seen  in  London  in 
our  "musical"  "comedies",  in  much  of  our  architec- 
ture, and  in  toys  made  for  children. 

Yours  sincerely, 

Dunsany. 

138 


LETTERS 


Stuart  Walker  to  Lord  Dunsany 

July  12,  1916. 
My  dear  Lord  Dunsany : 

When  my  mail  was  brought  to  me  this  morning 
the  first  thing  that  caught  my  eye  was  a  light  green 
seal  which  represented  a  god  of  the  mountain.  Be- 
fore I  turned  to  the  face  of  the  envelope  I  called  my 
mother  and  my  cousin  to  tell  them  that  I  need  search 
no  further  for  the  design  for  the  costumes.  Then 
one  of  them  asked  who  made  the  seals.  The  moment 
I  turned  the  envelope  I  recognized  your  writing, 
which  I  had  seen  in  the  manuscript  of  "  The  Queen's 
Enemies." 

Your  letter  pleased  me  very  much,  but  shortly 
after  I  had  read  it,  I  heard  that  the  rights  to  "A 
Night  at  an  Inn"  had  gone  definitely  to  Mr.  Harrison 
Gray  Fiske.  Of  course  I  was  deeply  disappointed 
for  the  addition  of  this  play  to  my  repertory  would 
have  meant  a  great  deal  to  me.  Mr.  Fiske  is  much 
older  in  the  theatre  than  I  am,  but  I  am  hoping  to 
make  you  very  proud  of  my  work  on  your  other 
plays.  I  cabled  to  you  to-day  about  "Argimenes" 
with  more  assurance  than  I  have  had  for  some  time. 
Your  suggestion  that  Zarb's  final  "Majesty"  is 
spoken  in  awe  shows  me  that  I  shall  be  able  to  stage 
your  work  as  you  would  like  it.  I  have  always,  in 
reading  the  play  aloud,  read  the  word  in  awe.  The 
direction  "in  a  voice  of  protest"  was,  frankly,  a 
shock  to  me  because  it  changed  Zarb  and  weakened 

139 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

the  remarkable  climax  of  the  play,  which  by  the 
way,  I  think  builds  very  well  in  interest  with  sure 
dramatic  strides  —  not  as  inevitably  as  "The  Gods 
of  the  Mountain",  but  beautifully,  nevertheless. 

I  am  going  to  tell  you  a  few  of  my  ideas  about  play- 
producing  because  I  feel  at  ease  after  reading  your 
statements  about  our  uncivilized  musical  comedies 
and  our  absurd  toys  for  children.  To  my  mind 
the  play  is  the  most  important  consideration.  The 
author  must  know  what  he  is  talking  about  and  why 
he  says  what  he  does  in  the  way  he  says  it.  There 
is  a  story  to  tell  and  I  try  to  tell  it  in  the  author's 
way.  I  don't  like  symbolism  as  such,  and  I  make  no 
effort  to  foist  upon  an  audience  a  suggestion  that 
there  is  always  some  deep  hidden  meaning.  There 
is  a  story  to  tell  and  that  story  must  always  have 
a  certain  effect  upon  the  audience,  and  that  effect 
is  gained  primarily  through  the  actor's  ability  to 
translate  the  author's  meaning  into  mental  and 
physical  action.  The  scenery  must  never  be  ob- 
trusive; it  is  not  and  cannot  be  an  end  in  itself; 
but  to  me  lights  come  next  to  the  actor  in  im- 
portance. With  lights  of  various  color  and  inten- 
sity, vast  changes  in  space,  and  time,  and  thought 
can  be  suggested.  My  lighting  system  is  very  re- 
markable. Oh,  how  I  wish  you  might  see  the 
beggars  turn  to  stone. 

I  know  your  feeling  for  your  first  beloved  play 
"King  Argimenes"  and  I  shall  treat  it  with  a  fine 
affection.  It  seems  almost  wicked  to  discuss  terms 
140 


LETTERS 


about  beautiful  things,  about  poetry;  but  I  want 
you  to  know  I  am  eager  to  help  your  name  to  its 
rightful  place  in  America,  and  to  try  to  see  that 
your  business  treatment  is  just.  I  think  "King 
Argimenes"  will  be  especially  successful  in  the 
spring  and  summer  and  in  California  when  we  play 
in  the  open  air. 

Stuart  Walker. 


Lord  Dunsany  to  Stuart  Walker 

Brae  Head  House,  Londonderry 

July  14,  1916. 
Dear  Mr.  Walker : 

I've  just  cabled  accepting  the  terms  of  your  cable 
received  this  morning.     I  hope  you  will  like  the  play 
and  that  you  will  find  it  a  success.    You  will  prob- 
ably not  have  the  difficulties  that  I  found  in  Dublin 
when  "Argimenes'*  was  acted.     I  found  that  the 
actors  "off"  who  had  the  rather  impressive  chant 
of  "Illuriel  is  fallen"  to  do,  not  being  in  sight  of  the 
audience  would  never  trouble  to  do  it  accurately. 
There  are  two  such  chants,  a  mournful  one  and  a 
joyous  one,  and  they  used  to  mix  them  up  a  good  deal. 
But  then  they  used  not  to  rehearse  properly  there. 
I  wish  that  print  could  convey  the  tone  of  voice 
in  which  things  should  be  said,  but  it  can't. 
Yours  sincerely, 

Dunsany. 
141 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

Stuart  Walker  to  Lord  Dunsany 

July  17,  1916. 
My  dear  Lord  Dunsany : 

The  possession  of  "The  Gods  of  the  Mountain'' 
and  "The  Golden  Doom"  makes  me  very  happy. 
Now  I  am  waiting  word  on  "King  Argimenes" 
with  great  hopes.  It  is  a  big  play,  but  I  am  not 
expecting  any  such  popular  success  for  it,  or  for 
"The  Golden  Doom",  as  "A  Night  at  an  Inn" 
will  have  or  "The  Gods  of  the  Mountain"  ought 
to  have. 

The  loss  of  "A  Night  at  an  Inn"  was  a  great  dis- 
appointment to  me.  I  saw  it  the  first  night  at  the 
Neighborhood  Playhouse  and  I  told  the  Misses 
Lewisohn  then  that  I  would  do  anything  to  get  it. 
In  my  eagerness  to  get  in  touch  with  you  I  am  afraid 
that  I  hurt  or  displeased  them :  but  the  process  of 
reaching  you  seemed  so  terribly  slow.  I  had  already 
told  them  that  I  should  defer  to  them  even  if  I 
succeeded  in  reaching  you  first  and  that  if  I  got  the 
play  I  should  let  them  use  it  at  the  Neighborhood 
Playhouse.  Mr.  Fiske  ought  to  make  a  great  popu- 
lar success  of  his  production.  The  play  is  quite  the 
best  short  melodrama  I  have  ever  seen,  but  to  my 
heart  and  mind,  "The  Golden  Doom",  "The  Gods 
of  the  Mountain",  and  "King  Argimenes"  are  far 
greater  plays.  "The  Queen's  Enemies"  is  most 
interesting,  but  its  mechanical  requirements  are 
difficult  of  achievement  for  the  present.  "The 
142 


LETTERS 


Tents  of  the  Arabs"  impressed  me  very  much.  I 
hope  that  I  may  try  it  sometimes  when  my  resources 
are  greater. 

With  every  good  wish, 

Stuart  Walker. 

Stuart  Walker  to  Lord  Dunsany 

July  24. 
My  dear  Lord  Dunsany : 

Mr.  Zimmerer  brought  the  scene  designs  for  both 
"The  Golden  Doom"  and  "The  Gods  of  the  Moun- 
tain" last  night,  and  I  set  them  up  in  the  model  of 
my  theatre  to  test  them  under  the  Hghts.  "The 
Golden  Doom  "  is  really  a  remarkable  setting.  There 
are  the  great  iron  doors  in  the  centre  at  the  back  of 
the  stage.  At  each  side  of  the  doorway  is  a  tall 
green  column,  with  a  black  basalt  base  three  feet 
high,  standing  on  a  basalt  circle  in  a  gray  flooring. 
Hanging  between  the  columns  just  below  the  flies 
is  a  large  winged  device  in  dark  blue  with  a  touch 
of  orange  here  and  there.  Extending  from  the  gates 
diagonally  to  the  sides  of  the  proscenium  are  very 
high  black  marble  walls  with  a  narrow  dull-colored 
enameled  brick  "baseboard. "  The  only  vivid  color- 
ings on  the  stage  except  the  costumes  are  the  green 
columns  and  an  orange  design  on  the  iron  doors. 
As  in  the  winged  device,  Mr.  Zimmerer  has  followed 
Assyrian  and  Babylonian  designs  closely  in  the 
cut  and  color  of  the  costumes. 

143 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

As  the  Portmanteau  Theatre  main  stage  is  rather 
small,  and  the  forestage  is  much  used  for  the  action 
of  the  plays,  there  were  some  difficult  problems  in 
the  settings  of  "The  Gods  of  the  Mountain."  In 
the  first  act  Mr.  Zimmerer  uses  a  small  section  of  the 
wall  between  two  bastions.  It  is  built  rather  fantas- 
tically of  colored  rocks,  and  above  it  one  can  see  the 
copper  domes  of  Kongros,  and  in  the  distance  the 
emerald  peak  of  Marma.  This  last  detail  is  in- 
teresting but  I  am  not  yet  sure  that  it  is  best  to  have 
the  mountain  seen  far  beyond  the  city  in  the  first 
act  because  I  want  to  get  an  effect  in  the  second  and 
third  acts.  The  Metropolitan  Hall  of  Kongros  is 
quite  simple.  The  principal  detail  is  a  broad  lunette- 
shaped  window  through  which  Marma  is  visible  and 
it  is  with  the  play  of  lights  upon  Marma  that  I 
want  to  gain  some  impressive  effects.  In  the  costumes 
as  in  the  wall  of  the  first  act  Mr.  Zimmerer  uses 
oriental  themes  with  no  attempt  at  accuracy. 

Kongros  was  in  its  heyday  we  believe  some  time 
after  the  fall  of  lUuriel  and  as  we  place  it,  it  stood 
somewhere  west  of  the  Hills  of  Ting,  but  not  so  far 
southwest  as  ancient  Ithara. 

All  our  good  wishes  go  to  you,  my  dear  Lord 
Dunsany. 

S.  W. 


144 


iiii^^j  .1        I  i|iiii|._.i.j-.    r^j    igjiii  . --~ 

Photo  by  White  Studio.    Courtesy  of  Portmanteau  Theater 

The  Gods  of  the  Mountain 
Agmar  tells  Slag  to  have  a  prophecy  made 


LETTERS 


Lord  Dunsany  to  Stuart  Walker 

Londonderry,  Ireland. 

August  7,  1916. 
My  dear  Mr.  Walker : 

Another  welcome  letter  from  you  reminds  me  that 
I  have  not  answered  your  last.  I  was  waiting  for  a 
mood  which  should  be  worthy  of  the  occasion,  but 
I  have  had  few  moods  but  lazy  ones  ever  since  I 
was  wounded. 

I  have  always  heard  works  of  art  spoken  of  as 
valueless  or  of  value,  usually  the  former,  and  on 
the  rare  occasions  when  they  have  been  admitted 
to  be  of  value  I  had  found  that  they  take  their  place 
with  cheese.  They  are  in  fact  a  commodity  or 
"article",  and  have  a  price,  and  are  valued  accord- 
ing to  it.  It  is  therefore  a  great  delight  to  find  that 
you  look  on  a  work  of  art  as  a  work  of  art.  I  had 
almost  forgotten  that  it  was  one.  I  am  sorry  about 
"A  Night  at  an  Inn."  But  as  you  say,  it  cannot 
touch  the  little  "Golden  Doom  ",  while  to  compare 
"The  Gods  of  the  Mountain"  to  it  would  be  like 
comparing  a  man  to  his  own  shadow.  Talking  of 
"The  Golden  Doom  ",  there  is  one  sentence  in  Bjork- 
man's  preface  which  particularly  delighted  me  and 
that  is  the  one  in  which  he  says  that  I  show  a  child's 
desire  for  a  new  toy  and  the  fate  of  an  empire  as 
being  of  equal  importance  in  the  scheme  of  things. 
That  is  exactly  what  I  intended,  the  unforeseen  effect 
of  the  very  little  —  not  that  I  am  trying  to  teach 

145 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

anybody  anything  of  course,  I  may  mention  white 
chalk  while  I  am  telling  a  story  if  I  have  happened 
to  notice  that  chalk  is  white,  but  without  any  in- 
tention of  thrusting  a  message  into  the  ears,  or  a 
lesson  on  whiteness:  people  seem  to  have  been  so 
much  frightened  by  the  school-master  when  they 
were  young  that  they  think  they  see  him  in  every- 
one ever  after. 

Often  critics  see  in  my  plays  things  that  I  did  not 
know  were  there.  And  that  is  as  it  should  be,  for 
instinct  is  swift  and  unconscious,  while  reason  is 
plodding  and  slow,  and  comes  up  long  afterward 
and  explains  things,  but  instinct  does  not  stop  for 
explanations.  An  artist's  "  message  "  is  from  instinct 
to  sympathy.  I  try  sometimes  to  explain  genius 
to  people  who  mistrust  or  hate  it  by  telling  them  it 
is  doing  anything,  as  a  fish  swims  or  a  swallow  flies, 
perfectly,  simply  and  with  absolute  ease.  Genius  is 
in  fact  an  infinite  capacity  for  not  taking  pains. 

August  8. 
It  has  just  occurred  to  me  that  perhaps  you  never 
got  my  cable  in  answer  to  your  letter  about  "Argi- 
menes."  I  cabled  "Right"  meaning  that  I  accepted 
your  terms;  but  the  Censor,  who  is  wiser  than  I, 
found  in  this  message  a  menace  to  the  stability  of 
the  Realm,  and  an  explanation  of  my  invidious  cable 
was  demanded.  This  I  supplied,  and  thought  the 
cable  had  gone,  but  it  may  have  been  considered  too 
dangerous  in  the  end.  What  tended  to  annoy  me 
146 


LETTERS 


about  this  delay  was,  that  even  if  my  cable  had  been 
an  invitation  through  you  to  Hindenburg  to  land 
an  army  corps  on  the  Irish  coast,  I  am  one  of  the 
people  who  would  have  to  assist  to  push  it  off  again, 
and  as  my  name,  rank,  and  regiment  had  to  be 
signed  in  the  cable  form  this  thought  might  have 
occurred  to  others.  Perhaps  you  got  my  cable  after 
all,  though  delayed,  but  in  any  case  it's  no  use 
grumbling. 

About  "The  Golden  Doom."  The  Haymarket 
Theatre  acquired  the  rights  for  five  years  in  Novem- 
ber, 1912,  but  in  any  country  in  which  they  neglected 
to  perform  it  they  lost  the  rights  after  three  years,  and 
they  returned  to  me.  This  applies  to  the  U.  S.  A. ; 
the  rights  returned  to  me  last  winter,  but  in  any 
case  they  do  not  belong  to  the  printer  or  binder  of 
"Five  Plays."  What  is  more  important  is  that  the 
larger  the  children  are  the  more  they  might  be  apt 
to  blur  the  point  of  the  play  which  is,  that  though 
they  are  clearly  seen,  they  are  overlooked  and 
ignored.  If  the  girl  child  appeared  say  14  the 
sentries  would  probably  be  looking  at  her,  if  she 
was  15  they  would  never  take  their  eyes  off  her 
the  whole  time,  if  they  were  the  kind  of  sentries 
I  have  met  —  and  they  probably  were  in  Zericon 
at  the  time  Babylon  fell.  The  audience  would 
probably  feel  this.  But  to  go  on  talking  about 
important  matters  like  war  to  a  soldier,  while  small 
children  are  playing  in  the  dirt  or  sand,  is  humanly 
natural. 

147 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

I  thought  I  noticed  this  at  the  Hajmiarket,  when 
they  started  with  small  children  but  altered  the  cast 
afterward  and  changed  the  size.  But  of  course  it 
is  only  a  matter  of  illusion. 

The  "public"  must  needs  know  exactly  "when  it 
all  happened"  so  I  never  neglect  to  inform  them  of 
the  time.  Since  man  does  not  alter  it  does  not  in 
the  least  matter  what  time  I  put,  unless  I  am  writing 
a  play  about  his  clothes  or  his  motor  car,  so  I  put 
"about  the  time  of  the  fall  of  Babylon",  it  seemed 
a  nice  breezy  time,  but  "about  the  time  of  the  in- 
vention of  Carter's  Pills  "  would  of  course  do  equally 
well.  Well,  the  result  was  that  they  went  to  the 
British  Museum  and  got  the  exact  costumes  of  the 
period  in  Babylon,  and  it  did  very  nicely.  There  are 
sure  to  have  been  people  who  said,  "  Now  my  children 
you  shall  come  to  the  theatre  and  enjoy  yourselves, 
but  at  the  same  time  you  shall  learn  what  it  was  really 
like  in  Babylon."  The  fact  is  the  schoolmaster  has 
got  loose,  and  he  must  be  caged,  so  that  people  can 
enjoy  themselves  without  being  pounced  on  and  made 
to  lead  better  lives,  like  African  natives  being  carried 
away  by  lions  while  they  danced. 

Military  duties  have  somewhat  interfered  with 
the  course  of  this  letter  and  the  taking  of  a  wasps' 
nest  to  amuse  some  children  that  live  near  here,  and 
my  own  small  boy,  may  interfere  with  it  further. 

I  meant  when  I  got  your  last  letter  to  write  to 
you  sometime  and  send  you  a  few  comments  on 
"Argimenes",  for  print  unfortunately  cannot  con- 
148 


LETTERS 


vey  the  tone  in  which  words  are  said,  and  often  in 
the  tone  is  the  meaning.  I  have  "Argimenes"  by 
me  now  and  probably  shan't  find  much  to  say  about 
it.  First  of  all  on  page  63  (American  edition). 
Zarb  in  his  utterance  of  the  word  Majesty  shows  that 
he  attaches  more  importance  to  the  empty  glory 
of  being  called  Majesty  than  to  the  possession  of  a 
horse  or  any  other  advantage  he  enumerates.  But 
after  all  this  sort  of  detail  is  too  trivial  to  be  of  any 
interest  and  you  will  have  noticed  already  how  Argi- 
menes  with  his  wider  views  and  knowledge  of  strategy 
appears  witless  to  Zarb  when  it  comes  to  the  detail 
of  the  daily  life  of  a  soldier  of  the  slave  guard. 
Probably  if  we  were  suddenly  made  to  live  amongst 
insects  it  would  come  out  that  we  knew  nothing 
about  the  smell  of  grass  or  even  its  exact  color,  and 
the  insects  would  wonder  how  any  creature  living  in 
the  world  could  be  so  ignorant  of  a  thing  so  common 
as  grass. 

Another  little  note.  Page  75.  An  old  slave  — 
"  Will  Argimenes  give  me  a  sword  ?  "  He  says  it  as 
one  who  sees  a  dream  too  glorious  to  be  true. 

Old  Slave  —  '*A  sword!"  He  says  it  as  one  the 
dream  of  whose  life  has  come  true.  "No,  no,  I 
must  not."  He  says  it  as  one  who  sees  it  was  only 
a  dream.  But  in  the  book  this  change  between 
sword  and  no  is  not  indicated.  Of  course  I  always 
liked  to  read  my  play  aloud  before  it  was  acted  to 
show  the  actors  what  my  ideas  were,  which  print 
often  fails  to  do. 

149 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

Aug.  9. 
I  have  just  received  yours  of  July  19th  this  morning, 
and  see  by  it  that  you  never  received  the  cable  that 
I  sent  and  for  which  I  paid.  Do  not  think  badly 
of  our  Censor,  but  reflect  that  God  for  his  own  good 
reasons  has  given  wisdom  to  some,  while  upon  others 
for  reasons  as  divinely  wise  he  has  showered  stupidity. 
I  have  no  redress. 

Yours  very  sincerely, 

Dunsany. 

Lord  Dunsany  to  Stuart  Walker 

Ebrington  Barracks, 
Londonderry, 
Ireland. 
My  dear  Mr.  Walker,  — 

My  last  letter  to  you  ended  somewhat  abruptly,  my 
mind  being  too  preoccupied  with  the  stupidity  of  the 
Censor  who  seems  to  have  stopped  my  cable  to  you 
in  which  I  accepted  your  terms  for  my  two  act  play 
on  July  14th.  I  write  to  say  how  the  pictures  of 
the  plays  you  have  done  delight  me.  You  evidently 
have  the  spirit  of  Fairyland  there. 

August  13. 
I  am  glad  you  like  the  seal  of  the  god  among  the 
mountains.    I  cut  seals  on  silver  whenever  leisure 
and  an  idea  fall  in  the  same  hour,  and  this  one  is 
almost  my  favorite. 
150 


LETTERS 


I  was  looking  the  other  day  at  a  photograph  that 
Miss  Lewisohn  sent  me  of  **A  Night  at  an  Inn" 
and  I  was  much  struck  with  the  print  of  a  spaniel 
with  a  duck  in  his  mouth  hanging  on  the  wall; 
such  a  hackneyed  homely  touch  as  that  must  have 
made  a  splendid  background  for  Klesh  when  he 
came  in  so  faithfully  following  the  stage  directions, 
which  are  that  "he  was  a  long  sight  uglier  than  any- 
thing else  in  the  world." 

Let  me  hear  how  you  are  getting  on  with  "Argi- 
menes"  and  "The  Golden  Doom."  I  don't  get 
many  letters  from  America  and  as  it  seems  to  be 
the  most  fertile  soil  upon  which  my  work  has  fallen 
I  should  be  glad  to  hear  oftener  from  there.  I  don't 
suppose  my  brother  officers  know  that  I  write,  and 
all  European  soils  are  so  harrowed  by  war  that 
nothing  grows  there  but  death. 

August  15. 

I  have  just  received  your  letters  dated  July  24th 
and  26th. 

I  am  glad  to  hear  that  you  have  after  all  received 
the  cable  I  sent  off  on  July  14th. 

Mr.  Zimmerer's  designs  sound  magnificent.  Your 
words  'with  no  attempt  at  accuracy'  please  me,  they 
are  like  a  window  open  in  a  heated  schoolroom ;  for 
this  age  has  become  a  schoolroom,  and  nasty,  exact, 
little  facts  hem  us  round,  leaving  no  room  for  wonder. 

You  have  placed  Kongros  exactly ;  all  maps  agree 
with  you ;  for  though  they  do  not  actually  mark  it, 

151 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

the  tracks  across  the  desert  —  taken  in  conjunction 
with  the  passage  over  the  hills  of  Ting  —  and  re- 
garded in  the  light  of  all  travellers'  tales  —  can  only 
point  to  one  thing.  It  is  there,  as  you  have  said 
that  one  will  find  Kongros.  Yet  one  counsel  and 
a  warning  the  traveller  should  take  to  his  heart,  let 
him  heap  scorn  upon  himself  in  the  Fate,  let  him 
speak  meanly  of  himself  and  villify  his  origin,  for 
they  tell  a  fable  to-day,  even  in  Kongros  (the  old 
men  tell  it  seated  in  the  dust)  of  how  there  once  came 
folk  to  Kongros  City  that  made  themselves  out  to 
be  greater  than  men  may  be.  What  happened  to 
them  who  can  say  ?  For  it  was  long  ago.  Without 
doubt  the  green  gods  seated  in  the  city  are  the  true 
gods,  worn  by  time  though  they  be ;  and  above  all 
let  the  traveller  abase  himself  before  the  beggars 
there,  and  humble  himself  before  them;  for  who 
may  say  what  they  are  or  whence  they  come? 

Regarding  "The  Golden  Doom",  a  critic  said  in 
London  that  it  was  death  to  touch  the  iron  door 
and  yet  a  lot  of  people  touched  it.  There  might 
be  something  in  that  but  not  much  I  think.  The 
children  of  course  are  ignored  —  the  play  hinges  on 
that  —  and  after  all  someone  must  open  the  door 
for  the  King,  and  his  retinue  accompanies  him,  but 
better  not  let  any  unauthorized  person  touch  it  un- 
necessarily, for  it  would  be  a  pity  to  kill  a  good  actor 
just  for  the  sake  of  realism. 

Even  as  I  went  out  of  my  quarters,  five  minutes 
ago,  after  writing  this,  I  saw  eight  squads  drilling 
152 


LETTERS 


on  the  parade  ground  and  two  children  right  in  the 
middle  trying  to  dig  with  sticks  and  no  one  saying 
a  word  to  them,  so  I  know  that  my  "  Golden  Doom  " 
is  true  to  life.  But  after  all  it  is  easy  to  be  true  to 
life  when  one  writes  of  man  and  the  dreams  of  man, 
and  not  of  some  particular  set  of  fashions  in  dress 
or  catchwords  that  may  be  regarded  as  being  untrue 
to  all  time. 

Yours  very  sincerely, 

Dunsany. 

Stuart  Walker  to  Lord  Dunsany 

October  2,  1916. 
My  dear  Lord  Dunsany : 

Your  letters  of  mid-August  were  forwarded  to  me 
at  Wyoming.  They  had  been  despoiled  of  their 
seals  but  no  black  pencil  or  heedless  shears  had  laid 
the  contents  waste.  I  have  a  very  serious  quarrel, 
because  I  am  quite  sure  one  of  my  letters  and  several 
bits  of  printed  matter  never  reached  you.  Many 
months  ago  I  sent  my  message  to  you  whose  work 
has  said  so  much  to  me,  and  I  told  you  then  what  I 
thought  of  "The  Golden  Doom"  and  what  I  hoped 
for  "The  Gods  of  the  Mountain",  and  "King 
Argimenes."  America  did  not  know  you  so  well 
then.  Now  I  take  pride  in  telling  you  that  even 
the  salesmen  in  the  bookshops  know  your  name, 
the  names  of  your  books  —  even  those  reported  out 
of  print  —  and  have  their  individual  way  of  pro- 
nouncing everything.    Many  of  them  have  friends 

153 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

who  know  you,  and  these  friends  come  back  like 
travellers  past  Marma  with  their  wonder  tales  and 
pronunciations.  You  are  variously  called  Dun' 
sany,  Doon  sah  ny,  Dun  sa  ny,  Dun  san  y,  author 
of  Ar  gim  i  nez,  Ar  gi  mee  neez,  Argi  me  nez,  I 
myself  have  chosen  the  pronunciation  of  Argimenes 
—  the  ar  as  in  are,  the  gi  as  in  give,  s  as  z  —  There ! 
the  eternal  pedogogue  is  showing  beneath  my  youth, 
I  fear;  but  I  call  Argimenes  what  I  do  call  him 
because  I  think  he  would  like  it,  even  though  he  had 
another  way. 

We  had  our  public  dress  rehearsals  of  "  The  Golden 
Doom"  and  "The  Gods  of  the  Mountain"  at 
Wyoming.  And  here  is  where  I  should  like  to  tell 
you  what  these  curtains  opening  on  the  realization 
of  my  dream  meant  to  me ;  but  I  cannot.  I  have 
not  your  words  to  picture  intangible  things.  I  can 
tell  you  only  that  I  was  very  happy  to  see  in  my  own 
little  theatre  what  I  know  to  be  a  great  work.  "  The 
Golden  Doom"  was  remarkable  and  its  effect  upon 
the  audience  was  indescribable.  The  scene  you 
know.  Under  the  lights  it  was  impressive.  But  now 
that  you  have  told  me  what  you  think  of  school- 
rooms may  I  confess  that  Mr.  Zimmerer  did  use 
Assyrian  and  Babylonian  designs  but  with  less 
attempt  at  accuracy  than  I  led  you  to  believe.  The 
Sentries  were  very  good.  I  had  already  made  them 
very  human  sentries  before  your  letter  came,  not  be- 
cause I  have  known  raw  man  through  time  and  space, 
as  you  have,  but  because  I  have  known  him  from  the 
154 

f 


LETTERS 


Gulf  of  Mexico  to  the  Great  Lakes  and  from  a  Loui- 
siana hamlet  to  New  York.  The  children  are  young. 
They  are  played  without  strain  by  charming  people 
who  give  the  illusion  of  innocence  and  wonder. 
The  King  and  his  Chamberlain  are  impressive  and 
the  Prophets  with  their  cloaks  are  joys.  When 
they  make  the  sign  to  the  stars  —  laying  the  backs 
of  their  right  hands  horizontally  against  their  fore- 
heads they  disclose  a  great  flat  jewel  in  the  palm  of 
the  hand.  The  spies,  who  are  usually  played  as 
jumping  jacks,  are  very  skillfully  played  in  all 
seriousness.  Comedy  is  so  near  the  surface  of  life 
that  it  can  find  its  way  without  the  forcing  tried  by 
most  directors.  And  "The  Golden  Doom"  is  life 
to  me.  I  introduce  music  twice.  When  the  King 
orders  a  sacrifice  to  be  made,  an  attendant  bears 
the  order  to  the  nearest  temple  and  presently  a 
stringed  instrument  strangely  played  (a  bronze 
gong  and  a  tom-tom  mark  the  rhythm)  is  heard. 
After  the  order  is  rescinded  the  musician  plucks 
a  dirge  faintly,  for  have  the  priests  not  donned 
their  black  cloaks?  The  audience  was  deeply  im- 
pressed. But  I  have  always  known  it  was  a 
great  play. 

I  cannot  write  so  surely  of  "The  Gods  of  the 
Mountain"  because  I  am  pla5dng  Agmar  and  my 
judgment  is  that  of  the  actor  who  feels  the  audience 
during  the  play  and  hears  the  verdict  afterward. 
Evidently  however  the  audience  understood  you. 
They  laughed  at  the  right  time,  and  what  is  better 

165 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

still,  they  shuddered  at  the  right  time  and  cheered 
when  the  final  curtains  closed.  I  have  taken  two 
liberties  in  the  first  act.  Will  you  send  your 
approval  quickly?  The  curtains  open  after  a  mo- 
ment of  music  that  tells  of  the  East.  The  mottled 
wall,  the  copper  domes  of  Kongros,  and  green 
Marma  piercing  the  sky  in  the  distance,  are  visible 
in  the  bright  sunlight.  Ulf,  penurious  and  suspi- 
cious, Oogno,  the  gluttonous  and  care  free,  and  Thahn, 
the  inefficient  and  wheezy,  are  seated  under  the  wall. 
An  old  water  bearer  passes  by,  then  a  dromedary 
man.  A  moment  later  a  fat  woman  singing  a  song 
which  the  successful  beggars  imitate  goes  into  the 
city  but  offers  no  alms.  A  snake-charmer  passes  — 
oh,  but  her  dress  is  a  marvel  of  white  and  orange 
and  red  —  she  drops  one  of  her  snakes  into  fat 
Oogno's  bowl.  Agmar  followed  by  his  one  eyed 
retainer  enters;  Agmar  in  purple  rags,  and  the 
other  in  black  that  has  been  fastened  together  at 
strategical  points  by  pink  which  he  must  have  stolen 
in  Ackara.  I  have  Mian  brought  on  the  first  act. 
He  is  little,  inefficient,  young,  and  speechless,  but 
he  makes  the  seventh  beggar.  The  end  of  the  first 
act  shows  the  seven  beggars.  They  put  the  green 
raiment  underneath  their  rags.  Agmar  lines  them 
up,  looks  them  over,  shows  them  the  attitude  of 
the  gods  once  more  and  takes  his  place  at  the  head 
of  the  column.  The  curtains  close  as  the  beggars 
disappear  into  the  city.  ...  Of  course  I  have  not 
added  any  lines,  but  the  business  holds  very  well. 
156 


LETTERS 


In  the  second  act  I  have  made  the  character  whose 
child  is  bitten  by  a  death  adder  a  mother.  I  think 
the  scene  gains  in  pathos  and  prepares  somewhat 
more  effectively  for  the  third  act  which  is  tremen- 
dous. I  have  had  the  thrones  made  so  that  they  are 
palpably  imitation  and  this  seems  to  add  to  the 
impressiveness  of  the  final  picture,  when  the  fearful 
citizens  have  slunk  away  leaving  the  seven  stone 
beggars  to  themselves :  in  the  distance  green  Marma 
pierces  a  blue  night  sky.  .  .  .  Mr.  Arthur  Farwell, 
one  of  our  best  American  composers,  has  done  the 
music  for  "The  Gods  of  the  Mountain"  and  his 
grasp  of  your  story  is  excellent. 

We  have  not  yet  put  "King  Argimenes"  into  the 
scene,  but  it  is  going  very  well  in  rehearsal.  Mr. 
Harry  Gilbert  is  writing  the  music  for  this,  and  the 
tear  song  and  the  wine  song  are  promising.  I  think 
in  fact  that  you  would  be  highly  pleased  with  what 
we  are  doing. 

Our  season  opens  Oct.  23rd  at  Springfield,  Massa- 
chusetts, and  for  five  weeks  we  play  in  the  East  in 
the  larger  cities  —  on  November  27th  we  open  in 
New  York  at  the  39th  Street  Theatre  which  is 
really  well  arranged  for  your  performances.  Our 
opening  bill  will  in  all  likelihood  consist  of  "The 
Golden  Doom",  "Nevertheless",  "The  Flame  Man", 
and  my  own  "Six  Who  Pass  While  the  Lentils  Boil." 
On  Thursday  and  Saturday  mornings  of  the  first 
week  we  shall  play  for  children  —  and  what  an  au- 
dience they  will  make !    I  use  a  prologue  for  some  of 

157 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

my  own  plays  and  with  your  permission  I  am  going  to 
make  him  speak  some  of  your  Hnes  before  "  The  Golden 
Doom."  Of  course  I  shall  submit  the  lines  to  you 
for  approval.  I  want  to  open  the  performance  in 
New  York  with  a  prologue  to  the  Theatre,  a  copy  of 
which  I  enclose.  Then  the  Prologue  of  the  plays 
will  speak  a  few  words:  if  no  news  spreader  were 
listening  I  should  call  them  mood  words.  These 
prologues  were  liked  last  season  very  much.  Such 
lines  as  your  "  Come  with  me,  ladies  and  gentlemen 
who  are  in  any  wise  weary  of  London  (may  I  sub- 
stitute the  City  for  London?)  come  with  me:  and 
those  that  tire  at  all  of  the  world  we  know ;  for  we 
have  new  worlds  here." 

Haven't  you  some  new  plays  that  I  can  see? 
With  every  good  wish  — 

Stuart  Walker. 

Lord  Dunsany  to  Stuart  Walker 

Ebrington  Barracks, 
Londonderry,  Ireland. 
Oct.  26. 
My  dear  Mr.  Walker : 

I  have  looked  forward  for  a  long  time  to  hearing 
from  you  again  and  was  delighted  this  morning  to 
find  your  letter  of  Oct.  2.  It  is  delightful  to  find 
somebody  just  going  ahead  with  my  play  without 
asking  if  it  is  What  The  Public  Wants  (as  though  the 
Public  had  irrevocably  decided  just  what  it  wants 
158 


LETTERS 


forever),  if  the  audience  will  understand  it,  —  and 
generally  muddling  round. 

Well,  to  answer  your  letter  bit  by  bit,  first  of  all 
the  one  way  that  nobody  should  pronounce  my 
name  is  the  way  people  do  who  call  it  Dun'  sa  ny, 
for  pretty  as  the  dactyl  is  it  is  not  a  dactyl.  Those 
who  call  it  Doon-sahny  have  every  right  to  do  so, 
for  since  it  is  the  name  of  an  Irish  place  one  can 
hardly  blame  people  for  pronouncing  it  in  an'old 
Irish  unanglicized  manner.  I  don't  know  about  the 
Sahny,  but  Doon  is  I  believe  a  quite  correct  pro- 
nunciation of  those  circular  things  which  in  Ireland 
are  usually  spelt  dun  and  which  appear  in  London  as 
don,  from  one  of  which  my  name  evidently  had  its 
name.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact  I  pronounce  it  Dun 
sa'  ny,  with  the  accent  on  the  second  syllable  which  is 
pronounced  as  say,  the  first  syllable  rhyming  with 
gun.  To  come  to  a  much  more  important  matter 
you  are  right  about  Argi  meen  eez,  the  principle 
accent  falling  on  the  8rd  syllable,  the  g  is  hard,  the 
gi  as  in  give,  and  the  whole  arrangement  of  the  word 
as  in  Artaxerxes. 

The  Censor  will  wonder  who  Argimenes  (to  spell 
him  correctly)  is,  and  why  the  hell  it  should  matter 
how  my  name  is  pronounced  in  America. 

No,  it  is  impossible  to  substitute  "the  city"  for 
"London"  in  my  preface  to  "The  Book  of  Wonder." 
It  would  upset  the  rhythm  and  make  a  sentence 
that  I  could  never  have  written.  Say  "who  are 
in  any  wise  weary  of  cities''  and  you  will  be  all 

159 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

right.  Use  the  phrase  as  much  as  you  like.  Wall 
Street,  if  applicable,  would  sound  splendid. 

What  you  tell  me  of  the  way  you  are  doing  my 
plays  makes  me  feel  sure  they  will  succeed,  not  only 
because  of  the  way  you  are  doing  them,  but  because 
your  letter  makes  me  confident  that  their  fortunes 
can  safely  be  intrusted  to  you. 

I  wish  I  could  read  each  play  to  you  once,  for 
neither  pen  nor  typist  can  say  exactly  where  the 
stress  is  to  fall,  in  spite  of  them  the  rhythm  can  be 
missed,  and  even  in  some  cases  they  may  not  show 
clearly  with  what  motive  little  words  are  said,  while 
some  appear  to  have  significance  where  none  is 
intended. 

I  wonder  how  the  sentry  will  say  "I  would  that 
I  were  swimming  down  the  Gyshon,  on  the  cool 
side,  under  the  fruit  trees."  Sometimes  my  love 
of  poetry  overcomes  the  dramatist  in  me,  and  here 
and  there  are  lines  that  I  would  like  to  hear  said 
merely  lyrically.  If  it  be  not  blasphemous  to  men- 
tion his  name  while  speaking  of  my  own  work  I 
would  say  that  Shakespeare  had  this  fault :  you  read 
some  such  direction  as,  enter  Two  Murderers, 
and  then  you  read  some  pure  ecstacy  of  verse  as 
the  ruffians  come  on  talking  perhaps  about  dawn 
in  fairyland. 

I  should  like  the  sentry  who  has  that  line  of  mine 

to  say  the  words  "on  the  cool  side,  under  the  fruit 

trees"  just  as  the  last  part  of  a  hexameter.    After 

all  the  —  poets  are  right,  there  is  a  meaning  in 

160 


LETTERS 


rhythm  though  it  lie  too  deep  and  is  too  subtle  for 
us  to  reason  out,  or  perhaps  it  lies  like  joy  clear  all 
over  the  surface  of  the  world,  and  so  is  missed  by 
our  logic  that  goes  burrowing  blind  like  the  mole, 
over  whose  head  the  buttercups  blow  unseen :  that 
is  the  right  explanation,  not  my  first ;  nothing  lies 
too  deep  that  is  essential  to  life,  or  who  would  live? 

I  turn  to  your  letter  again.  A  gong  and  a  tom- 
tom are  a  lovely  idea,  and  a  flat  jewel  in  the  palm  of 
the  hand!  Of  course  that  is  just  the  place  where 
people  would  wear  large  flat  jewels  who  had  never 
known  manual  labor  and  whose  only  business  was  to 
bless.  You  say  I  know  the  scenes;  but  I  wish  I 
did.  I  never  saw  a  design  of  it  although  you  de- 
scribed it  to  me. 

So  you  are  Agmar.    That  is  good. 

The  water-bearer  and  the  snake-charmer  and  all 
will  be  great  additions.  Instead  of  citizens,  etc. 
at  the  foot  of  the  programme  you  might  write 
"One  who  sells  water,  A  charmer  of  snakes",  and 
so  on.  Instantly  the  audience  will  know  that 
they  are  before  the  gates  of  a  country  where  water 
has  its  price,  and  the  charming  of  snakes  is  an 
occupation. 

Do  what  you  like  with  Ulf.  To  me  he  appeared 
a  man  who  in  the  course  of  his  years  had  learned 
something  of  what  is  due  to  the  gods :  it  is  he,  and 
he  alone,  that  hints  at  Nemesis,  and  at  the  last  he 
openly  proclaims  it  —  "  (my  fear)  shall  go  from  me 
cndng  like  a  dog  from  out  a  doomed  city." 

161 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

A  play  writes  itself  out  of  one's  experience  of  life, 
going  back  further  even  than  one  can  remember, 
and  even,  I  think,  into  inherited  memories.  Our 
slow  perceptions  and  toilsome  reasoning  can  never 
keep  pace  with  any  work  of  art,  and  if  I  could  tell 
you  for  certain  the  exact  source  and  message  of 
"The  Gods  of  the  Mountain"  I  could  tell  you  from 
what  storms  and  out  of  what  countries  come  every 
drop  of  the  spring  that  is  laughing  out  of  the  hill. 

Therefore  I  only  suggest  that  Ulf  plays  as  it  were 
the  part  of  a  train  bearer  to  the  shadow  of  some 
messenger  from  the  gods. 

Oct.  26. 

This  letter  has  been  lying  about  for  some  time  so 
I  had  better  send  it  off  though  your  letter  is  but  half 
answered. 

Do  send  me  photographs  or  designs  of  scenes,  as 
many  as  you  can,  and  Lady  Dunsany  would  very 
much  like  to  have  the  music  for  the  piano.  Thus 
I  shall  be  able  to  hear  it,  or  at  least  an  echo  of  it ; 
she  would  also  very  much  like  to  see  the  photographs. 

I  do  not  expect  to  go  to  the  front  before  the  middle 
of  December. 

I  wish  you  the  best  of  luck  with  your  own  plays 
and  for  your  venture  with  mine.  You  are  one  of  the 
prophets  of  my  gods.  In  all  history  I  know  of  no 
tale  of  a  god  without  any  prophet;  that  would  be 
too  sad  even  for  history.  May  my  gods  protect 
you  from  the  following,  who  stoned  the  prophets 
162 


C/UX.^^        .^Cy^Ajt'X%*^»,^C4^ 


^fcM>-%     u>4*^yL  /Cax4l 

C^ry^^A^UffS^  Cxc^i^x     vxha^   drurL.     dU 

A  Page  of  a  Letter  from  Lord  Dunsany 


LETTERS 


so  often  of  old  time  and  stone  them  still  —  they 
sweat  and  pant,  for  they  have  stoned  for  so  many 
centuries,  their  hands  are  cut  by  the  lifting  of  many 
flints,  still  they  stone  on,  lest  ever  the  prophets 
should  live,  they  deem  it  a  holy  duty :  — 

Ignorance 
Apathy 

Empty  Frivolity 
Fashion 

and  many  another  begotten  by  the  third  upon  the 
fourth.    And  so  farewell. 

Dunsany. 

Stuart  Walker  to  Lord  Dunsany 

November  5,  1916. 
My  dear  Lord  Dunsany : 

My  intention  was  to  write  you  immediately  after 
the  first  performance  of  "The  Golden  Doom"  and 
"The  Gods  of  the  Mountain"  but  when  I  tell  you 
that  we  have  played  65  plays  in  12  cities  during  the 
past  two  weeks  you  may  understand  my  delay. 

"The  Golden  Doom"  was  first  performed  on  Tues- 
day Oct.  24th  in  Hartford  Conn,  and  we  have  given 
five  performances  of  it  in  the  two  weeks.  It  has 
made  a  very  deep  impression  both  with  newspaper 
men  and  the  public  at  large.  When  I  have  a  moment 
to  sit  down  and  sort  out  my  papers  I  shall  send  you 
some  clippings.     In  one  you  will  notice  that  the 

163 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

writer  appreciates  the  youngness  of  the  children.  I 
do  not  generally  approve  of  having  a  girl  play  a  boy's 
part,  but  Miss  Rogers  creates  a  most  happy  illusion, 
and  this  saves  me  from  using  my  very  remarkable 
Gregory  Kelly  in  the  part.  He  is  somewhat  too 
tall.  I  am  more  in  love  with  your  beautiful  play 
than  ever  and  it  is  to  be  used  in  the  opening  bill  in 
New  York  City  on  Nov.  27th.  Unfortunately, 
there  are  no  photographs  yet,  because  we  have  been 
moving  about  so  feverishly  and  rapidly,  that  we 
cannot  take  time  to  set  up  a  play  especially  for  the 
photographer. 

"The  Gods  of  the  Mountain"  had  its  first  per- 
formance at  Mount  Holyoke,  and  it  is  a  great  play. 
I  shall  send  you  photographs  of  myself  as  Agmar, 
and  Mr.  Kelly  as  Slag  and  several  of  the  beggars. 
In  playing  Agmar,  I  have  made  him  a  man  who  would 
have  been  a  great  man  if  he  had  just  been  one  step 
further  advanced  in  understanding.  Several  of  my 
friends  have  disagreed  with  me  in  not  making  him  a 
physically  powerful  man.  I  am  quite  tall,  being  six 
feet  and  quite  slender,  and  as  you  will  see  from  the 
costume,  I  accentuate  both  the  height  and  the 
slenderness  of  the  man,  and  there  are  moments  when 
I  allow  him  to  develop  a  real  light  in  his  eye,  that 
is,  the  light  that  could  shine  through  the  ages  if 
it  were  allowed  to  shine. 

I  am  quite  gratified  that  every  notice  has  spoken 
of  the  final  effect  in  the  play  when  the  seven  beggars 
have  turned  to  green  stone  and  in  the  distance  green 
164 


LETTERS 


Marma  cleaves  a  deep  blue  sky.  Enthusiasm  at 
the  end  of  this  scene  has  been  uniformly  gratifjdng. 

"  King  Argimenes"  is  to  have  its  first  performance 
next  Friday  November  the  10th  in  Pittsburg. 

On  account  of  the  small  size  of  the  Portmanteau 
stage  I  have  had  a  very  difficult  problem  in  the  first 
act  of  suggesting  great  space,  and  finally  succeeded 
in  obtaining  the  desired  effect  I  think.  Instead  of  us- 
ing your  suggestion  —  the  flat  Damiak  Slave  Fields — 
I  have  used  the  side  of  a  hill  which  Damiac  mentions 
in  the  second  act.  All  that  the  audience  sees  is  the 
grass  covered  slope  of  the  hill  and  into  this  has  been 
cut  a  deep  impressive  trench,  and  in  thi^  trench  are 
Argimenes  and  Zarb.  The  whole  act  is  dull  in  color 
and  depressive.  In  the  second  act,  however,  Mr. 
Zimmerer  indulged  himself  in  the  most  vivid  colorings 
that  we  have  on  the  Portmanteau  stage.  The  entire 
stage  is  draped  in  black  curtains.  On  a  black  dais 
is  placed  the  Throne  of  Darniak.  This  throne  seat 
is  built  out  of  elephant  tusks.  The  back  ones  are 
seven  feet  high  curving  high  over  Darniak's  head,  and 
the  ivory  is  inlaid  in  places  with  vermilion  and  blue 
jewels.  The  seat  of  the  throne  is  a  vermilion  cushion 
and  immediately  back  of  the  throne  is  a  great  green 
circle,  and  running  down  the  steps  is  a  broad  green 
crape  which  is  laid  on  a  black  floor.  To  the  right 
sits  Illuriel.  He  is  a  marvelous  creation  in  ivory, 
gold  and  vermilion,  and  he  sits  with  oriental  calm- 
ness on  an  agate  column.  On  the  other  side  of  the 
throne  stands  an  hour  glass  through  which  vermilion 

165 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

sand  is  slowly  running,  and  this  stands  on  top  of  a  gold 
globe  which  in  turn  rests  upon  a  vermilion  standard. 
Darniak  himself  wears  a  black  robe  and  seated  on  the 
steps  at  his  feet  is  dark  haired  Atharlia  in  orange  and 
red.  The  blonde  Oxara  is  in  lavender  and  white  and 
silver.  The  feline  Cahafra  is  in  light  blue  and  white 
and  her  hair  is  red.  The  tragic  Thragolind  is  in 
gray  and  blue.  I  think  you  would  like  the  Queens. 
Just  one  more  suggestion  about  "  The  Gods  of  the 
Mountain."  In  the  third  act  I  have  had  the 
thrones  built  so  that  they  are  palpably  imitative. 
Am  I  right  in  doing  this  ?  The  altar  in  the  second  act 
is  a  great  block  of  agate  standing  on  ivory  legs.  It 
is  really  a  wonderful  piece  of  stage  furniture. 
Very  truly  yours, 

Stuart  Walker. 

Sttmrt  Walker  to  Lord  Dunsany 

December  24,  1916. 
My  dear  Lord  Dunsany  : 

First  let  me  thank  you  for  the  photograph  which 
your  uncle  delivered  to  me.  It  is  the  pleasantest 
sort  of  assurance  that  the  strange  man  shown  in  the 
article  in  the  Boston  Transcript  was  not  you. 

Our  season  in  New  York  has  proved  more  success- 
ful than  I  had  hoped  and  we  are  now  advertising 
our  sixth  week.  It  is  unfortunate  that  we  cannot 
stay  longer  because  just  the  people  to  whom  we  want 
to  appeal  are  finding  us  and  sending  their  friends  to 
166 


LETTERS 


see  us.  This  resulted  in  good  houses  last  week  which 
is  notoriously  the  worst  week  in  the  theatrical  year. 
"King  Argimenes"  made  a  deep  impression  and  so 
with  "Gammer  Gurton"  and  my  own  anonymous 
dramatization  of  "The  Birthday  of  the  Infanta"  it 
will  remain  in  the  bill  all  the  week.  The  critics 
have  for  once  united  in  praise  of  my  theatre  and  in 
the  color  and  form  of  "  King  Argimenes"  they  forgot 
to  say  that  the  theatre  is  small. 

"The  Gods  of  the  Mountain"  has  probably  had  its 
last  performance  here  for  this  season  because  I 
think  I  see  my  way  clear  to  produce  it  on  a  large 
scale  next  season.  We  have  already  played  it  in 
New  York  16  times  —  a  very  fine  record  for  a  reper- 
tory company.  We  have  played  "The  Golden 
Doom"  11  times.  Of  course  when  we  return  next 
season  we  shall  repeat  them.  They  are  plays  that 
I  want  to  keep  in  my  repertory  for  years  and  years  to 
come,  for  despite  the  statement  of  the  Sun  critic  that 
they  are  little  plays,  and  the  Mail  man  that  you  do 
not  care  much  about  the  theatre  or  what  becomes  of 
your  plays  —  he  says  you  dabble  in  them  as  amateur 
poets  dabble  with  the  magazines  —  I  am  inclined  to 
the  certainty  that  your  three  plays  will  live  as  long 
as  I  live  in  the  theatre,  and  ages  beyond  that. 

" King  Argimenes"  strangely  enough  builds  beauti- 
fully from  the  scene  between  Argimenes  and  Zarb 
to  the  finale  of  the  second  act  when  Argimenes  decked 
in  a  robe  of  cloth  of  gold,  mounts  to  the  step  of  the 
throne  and  turns  majestically  before  the  ivory  throne 

167 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

to  order  the  burial  of  the  late  king.  There  has 
never  been  a  suggestion  of  loss  of  tension  in  the 
second  act.  Not  even  during  the  scene  of  the  queens 
and  the  prophet  does  the  audience  forget  the  crouch- 
ing Argimenes  who  stole  from  the  dark  trench  in 
the  preceding  act  to  kill  the  guard.  After  the  queens 
leave  the  stage  in  the  second  act,  I  have  the  scene 
darkened  to  suggest  a  lapse  of  time.  Then  in  a  half 
light  broken  now  and  then  by  a  gleam  of  torches, 
the  rest  of  the  play  is  done.  When  Damiak  rushes 
in  from  the  chamber  of  banquets  to  see  Illuriel 
cast  down  I  have  the  queens  follow  him  and  it  is 
their  voices  that  first  take  up  the  wail  "Illuriel  is 
fallen."  Besides  their  long-robed  figures  stealing  in 
terror  from  the  throne  room  are  much  more  impres- 
sive than  men's  figures  would  be  in  the  half  light. 
Both  Mr.  Zimmerer  and  Mr.  Farwell  are  very  slow 
with  their  work  for  you.  If  I  were  to  send  you  the 
score  of  the  music  as  it  is  written  for  the  harp,  violin, 
and  cello,  I  wonder  if  Lady  Dunsany  could  use  it  ? 
The  photographs  will  suggest  the  scenes  to  you,  but 
I  am  eager  to  have  you  see  the  color.  I  wish  I  could 
bring  my  whole  model  to  you.  Perhaps  I  shall  be 
able  to  do  so  some  day  within  the  days  of  my  youth. 
With  every  good  wish  for  the  New  Year  and  new 
years, 

Stuart  Walker. 


168 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX 

The  casts  given  in  the  following  pages  are  those 
of  the  first  British  and  American  productions.  All 
the  British  productions  were  professional,  but  in 
America  the  Neighborhood  Playhouse  productions, 
and  that  of  the  Arts  and  Crafts  Theater  must  be 
classed  technically  as  amateur.  From  an  artistic 
standpoint,  however,  they  were  entirely  professional, 
especially  the  latter.  This  is  a  small  point,  but  one 
worthy  of  attention,  as  Dunsany's  work  has  become 
widely  known  in  this  country  partially  through  the 
medium  of  the  amateur  stage.  I  have  given  the 
most  notable  of  the  amateur  productions,  and  those 
only  when  there  has  been  no  professional  production. 
Two  productions  of  "The  Gods  of  the  Mountain" 
are  mentioned  for  America,  because  the  first  was  so 
entire  a  failure  that  most  people  have  never  even 
heard  of  it.  There  have  been  many  other  amateur 
productions  of  these  plays  to  which  attention  has  been 
called  from  time  to  time,  but  it  is  neither  possible  nor 
in  the  slightest  degree  necessary  that  they  be  listed. 

References 

Lord  Dunsany's  Gods :  C.  Vale,  The  Forum,  May  1914^ 

Lord  Dunsany  on  the  East  Side  Teaches  Broadway 

How  to  Thrill :   Current  Opinion,  June  1916. 

171 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

Hail  and  Farewell:    (ieorge  Moore,  New  York,  D. 

Appleton  &  Co. 
The  Irish  Literary  Movement:    Padraic  Colum,  The 

Forum,  February,  1915. 
Seeing  the  Theatre  with  Lord  Dunsany's  Eye :  Oliver 

Sailer,  Boston  Transcript,  October  21,  1916. 
^The  Plays  of  Lord  Dunsany :   Clayton  Hamilton,  The 

Bookman  (New  York),  January,  1917. 
Ireland's  Literary  Renaissance :  Ernest  A.  Boyd,  New 

York,  John  Lane  Co. 
The  Contemporary  Drama  of  Ireland :  Ernest  A.  Boyd, 

Boston,  Little,  Brown  &  Co. 
J.  M.  Synge  and  the  Irish  Theatre :  Maurice  Bourgeois, 

London,  Constable  and  Co.  Ltd.  and  The  Mac- 

millan  Co.,  New  York. 
Introduction  to  Five  Plays  by  Lord  Dunsany :  Edwin 

Bjorkman,  Boston,  Little,  Brown  &  Co. 
The  Most  Talked  of  Playlet  of  the  Year :  Lynde  Denig, 

The  Theater  Magazine,  July,  1916. 
Lord  Dunsany's  Peculiar  Genius :  Montrose  J.  Moses, 

The  Bellman,  1917. 
A  Living  Theatre :  Gordon  Craig,  Florence,  1915. 

Published  Works 

Five  Plays:  "The  Gods  of  the  Mountain";  "The 
Golden  Doom";  "King  Argimenes  and  the 
Unknown  Warrior";  "The  Glittering  Gate"; 
"The  Lost  Silk  Hat."  London,  G.  Richards 
Ltd.,  1914,  with  a  frontispiece  by  I.  Lynch. 
New  York,  Mitchell  Kennerley,  1914 :  with  an  in- 
troduction by  Edwin  Bjorkman.  Boston,  Little, 
Brown  &  Co.,  1916. 
172 


APPENDIX 


Time  and  the  Gods :  London,  Heinemann,  1916,  illus- 
trated by  S.  H.  Sime.  Boston,  John  W.  Luce 
&  Co.,  1913. 

The  Sword  of  Welleran:  London,  G.  Allen  and  Sons, 
1908,  illustrated  by  S.  H.  Sime.  Boston,  John  W. 
Luce  &  Co.,  1916. 

The  Gods  of  Pegana:  London,  Pegana  Press,  1911, 
illustrated  by  S.  H.  Sime  (previously  published 
1905).     Boston,  John  W.  Luce  &  Co.,  1916. 

The  Book  of  Wonder:  London,  Heinemann,  1912, 
illustrated  by  S.  H.  Sime.  Boston,  John  W.  Luce 
&  Co.,  1913. 

Selections  from  the  Writings  of  Lord  Dunsany :  Church- 
town,  Cuala  Press,  1912  (preface  by  W.  B.  Yeats ; 
edition  limited  to  250  copies). 

Fifty-One  Tales :  New  York,  Mitchell  Kennerley,  1915, 
Boston,  Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  1917. 

The  Last  Book  of  Wonder:  Boston,  John  W.  Luce  & 
Co.,  1916,  illustrated  by  S.  H.  Sime.  With  a  pref- 
ace to  American  readers  by  Lord  Dunsany. 

The  Tents  of  the  Arabs :  New  York,  The  Smart  Set, 
March,  1915. 

A  Night  at  an  Inn :  New  York,  The  Sun- Wise  Turn 
Inc.,  1916. 

Of  the  seven  volumes  of  Tales  many  individual 
sketches  made  their  first  appearance  in  such  publica- 
tions as  The  Sketch,  The  Saturday  Review,  The  Celtic 
Christmas,  The  Neolith,  The  Shanachie,  The  Irish 
Review,  The  Forum,  and  The  Smart  Set.  There 
remain  scattered  Tales  which  are  as  yet  unpublished 
in  book  form. 

173 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

Deirdre  of  the  Sorrows :  a  critique  of  the  Abbey  Players 
in  London,  The  Saturday  Review,  June  1910. 

Romance  and  the  Modern  Stage :  London,  The  Na^ 
tional  Review,  July  1911. 

Review  of  Eleanor's  Enterprise :  London,  The  Saturday 
Review,  December  1911. 


Productions 
The  Glittering  Gate 

Produced  under  the  direction  of  Mr.  Norryes 
Connell,  at  the  Abbey  Theatre,  Dublin,  on  April 
29th,  1909,  with  the  following  cast : 

Jim Mr.  Fred  O'Donovan 

Bill Mr.  Norryes  Connell 

When  the  production  of  the  Abbey  Theatre  was 
carried  to  the  Court  Theatre,  London,  the  part  of 
Bill  was  acted  by  Mr.  J.  M.  Kerrigan,  who  also 
played  it  at  Manchester,  when  the  company  was  on 
tour. 

The  first  American  production  was  made  at  the 
Neighborhood  Playhouse,  New  York  City,  on  March 
6th,  1915.  The  scenery  was  designed  by  Mr. 
Warren  Dahler  and  Miss  Lois  Phipps.  The  cast 
was: 

Jim Mr.  David  Solomon 

Bill Mr.  Max  M.  Kaplan 

174 


APPENDIX 


King  Argimenes  and  the  Unknown  Warrior 

Produced  under  the  direction  of  Mr.  Nugent 
Monck,  at  the  Abbey  Theatre,  Dublin,  on  January 
26th,  1911,  with  the  following  cast : 


King  Argimenes 
Zarb     .... 
The  King's  Overseer 
An  Old  Slave 
A  Young  Slave    . 
A  Prophet   .    .    . 
King  Darniak 
The  Idol  Guard  . 
The    Servant    of 
King's  Dog   .    . 
Queen  Oxara  .    . 
Queen  Atharlia  . 
Queen  Cahafra    . 
Queen  Thragolind 


the 


Mr.  Fred  O'Donovan 
Mr.  J.  M.  Kerrigan 
Mr.  Ambrose  Power 
Mr.  Fred  Harford 
Mr.  Brinsley  MacNamara 
Mr.  J.  A.  O'Rourke 
Mr.  Arthur  Sinclair 
Mr.  Sydney  J.  Morgan 

Mr.  Eric  Gorman 
Miss  Maeve  O'Donnell 
Miss  Sara  Allgood 
Miss  Maire  O'Neill 
Miss  Maire  Nic  Shiubhlaig 


The  scenes  and  the  costumes  for  this  production 
were  designed  by  Mr.  Nugent  Monck. 

The  first  production  in  America  was  made  by 
Mr.  Stuart  Walker  in  his  Portmanteau  Theater,  in 
New  York  City,  on  December  18th,  1916,  with 
scenery  and  costumes  designed  by  Mr.  Frank  J. 
Zimmerer,  and  with  the  following  cast: 


175 


DUNSANY    THE  DRAMATIST 

King  Argimenes    ....  Mr.  McKay  Morris 

Zarb Mr.  Gregory  Kelly 

The  King's  Overseer    .    .  Mr.  Lew  Medbury 

An  Old  Slave Mr.  Frank  J.  Zimmerer 

A  Young  Slave     ....  Mr.  Robert  Cook 

A  Prophet Mr.  Edgar  Stehli 

King  Darniak Mr.  WiUard  Webster 

The  Idol  Guard   ....  Mr.  Ward  Thornton 
The  Servant  of  the  King's 

Dog Miss  Agnes  Rogers 

Queen  Oxara Miss  Florence  Wollersen 

Queen  Arthalla.    ....  Miss  Gertrude  Davis 

Queen  Cahapra     ....  Miss  Nancy  Winston 

Queen  Thragolind    .    .    .  Miss  Judith  Lowry 


The  Gods  of  the  Mountain 

First  produced  at  the  Haymarket  Theatre,  London, 
on  June  1st,  1911,  with  the  following  cast: 


OOGNO 

Thahn 

Ulf 

Agmar 

Slag 

A  Thief 

Mlan 


Mr.  E.  A.  Warburton 

Mr.  Claude  Rains 

Mr.H.R.  Hignett 

Beggars  ,    .  Mr.  Charles  V.  France 

Mr.  Charles  Maude 

Mr.  Laimrence  Hanray 

Mr.R.P.  Lamb 


176 


APPENDIX 


oorander 

Akmos 

Illanaum 

Bashara 

Thulek 

Thoharmas 

Haz 

Theedes 

LiRRA 

eselunza 

Thonion  Alara 

Ylax 

ackarnees 

A  Dromedary  Man 

Nennek  of  the  Meadows 


The  Others 


Mr.  J.  Dickson  Kenwin 
Mr.  Ernest  Graham 
Mr.  Grindon  Bentley 
Mr.  F.  G.  Clifton 
Mr.  G.  Carr 
Mr.  Kenneth  Dennys 
Mr.  B.  Hatton  Sinclair 
Mr.  A.  Jones 
Miss  Anne  Carew 
Miss  E.  Risdon 
Miss  V.  Whitaker 
Miss  M.  Ronsard 
Mr.  Norman  Page 
Mr.  W.  Black 
Miss  Enid  Rose 
Mr.  E.  Lyall  Swete 
Mr.  A.  Ackerman 
Mr.  K.  Black 
Mr.  H.  Cooper 
Mr.  E.  Leverett 
Mr.  G.  Wilkinson 
Mr.  J.  O'Brien 


The  scenery  was  designed  and  painted  by  Mr. 
Walter  Bayes,  with  the  exception  of  the  first  set, 
for  which  designs  were  made  by  Mr.  S.  H.  Sime. 

The  first  American  production  was  made  by  Mr. 
W.  A.  Brady,  in  the  Teck  Theater  in  Buffalo,  New 
York,  on  April  8th,  1912,  with  the  following  cast. 
With  the  exception  of  the  cast  the  production  was 
identical  with  the  one  at  the  Haymarket. 

177 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 


Beggars 


Citizens 


OOGNO 

Thahn 

Ulf 

Agmar 

Slag 

A  Thief 

Mlan 

oorabder 

Akmos 

Illanaum 

Bashara 

Theelek 

Thoharmas 

Haz 

Theedes 

LiRRA 

Eselunza 

Thonion  Alara 

Ylax 

ackarnes      from 
Desert 

First  Dromedary  Man 

Second  Dromedary  Man 

Neneck    of   the  Mead- 
ows       


The  Others 


the 


Mr.  George  Schaeffer 
Mr.  Worthington  Romaine 
Mr.  William  McVay 
Mr.  Cyril  Scott 
Mr.  M.  T.  McQuarrie 
Mr.  W.  J.  Gros 
Mr.  Sage  Bennett 
Mr.  Edwin  Cushman 
Mr.  Harry  Cowley 
Mr.  Dallas  Anderson 
Mr.  William  Levis 
Mr.  Arthur  Bentley 
Mr.  Louis  Meers 
Mr.  William  Henderson 
Mr.  James  Hogan 
Miss  Mahelle  Maybourne 
Miss  Su^an  Daniels 
Miss  Frances  Savage 
Miss  May  Sunderman 

Mr.  Rockcliffe  Fellowes 
Mr.  Edwin  F.  Thompson 
Mr.  Edgar  Stehli 

Miss  Mona  Morgan 

Mr.  Charles  Duff 

Mr.  Ackerman 

Mr.  C.  Black 

Mr.  L.  Darcy 

Mr.  William  Carmichael 

Mr.  F.  Levison 

Mr.  James  Murphy 


178 


APPENDIX 


Mr.  Brady  presented  " The  Gods  of  the  Mountain" 
upon  the  evenings  of  April  8th,  9th,  and  10th,  in 
Buffalo,  and  in  the  Shubert  Theater,  Rochester, 
New  York,  upon  the  11th,  12th,  and  13th,  after 
which  the  play  was  withdrawn. 

On  October  27th,  1916,  "The  Gods  of  the  Moun- 
tain" was  produced  for  a  second  time  in  America, 
by  Stuart  Walker,  in  his  Portmanteau  Theater, 
then  at  Mount  Holyoke,  Massachusetts.  The  cast, 
which  subsequently  played  28  performances  during 
a  repertory  season  in  New  York,  was  as  follows : 


Beggars 


Ulf 

OOGNO 

Thahn 

Agmar 

Slag 

A  Thief 

Mlan 

oorander  i        .    . 

Illanaun  [  Citizens 


Mr.  Edgar  Stehli 
Mr.  Lew  Medbury 
Mr.  Frank  J.  Zimmerer 
Mr.  Stuart  Walker 
Mr.  Gregory  Kelly 
Mr.  Robert  Cook 
Miss  Agnes  Rogers 
Mr.  Willard  Webster 
Mr.  Ward  Thornton 
Mr.  McKay  Morris 


Akmos        J         .... 

A  Mother Miss  Florence  Wollersen 

An  Old  Woman  who  Sells 

Water Miss  Judith  Lowry 

A  Dromedary  Man  .    .    .  Mr.  Edmond  Crenshaw 

A  Woman  Who  Sings    .    .  Miss  Dorothea  Carothers 

A  Charmer  of  Snakes  .    .  Miss  Gitruda  Tritjanski 

The  scenes,   costumes,   and   properties  for  this 

production  were  designed  by  Mr.  Frank  J.  Zimmerer. 

Mr.  Walker  made  use  of  music  especially  composed 

by  Mr.  Arthur  Farwell. 

179 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 


The  Golden  Doom 

Produced  at  the  Haymarket  Theatre,  London,  on 
November  19th,  1912.  Afterwards  made  a  tour  of 
Russian  cities.    The  cast  was  as  follows : 


First  Sentry 
Second  Sentry 
Stranger  .    . 
Girl      .    .    . 
Boy   .... 


Spies 


Chamberlain 
The  King       .    . 
First  Prophet   . 
Second  Prophet 
Chief  Prophet  . 

Attendants    .    . 


Mr.  Allan  Jeayes 
Mr.  G.  Dickson  Kenwin 
Mr.  Leonard  E.  Notcutt 
Miss  Eileen  Esler 
Mr.  Eric  Rae 
Mr.  Claude  Rains 
Mr.  Gerald  Jerome 
Mr.  Cyril  Hardinham 
Mr.  E.  Lyal  Swete 
Mr.  Henry  Hargreaves 
Mr.  Ralph  Hutton 
Mr.  Frank  Pridley 
Mr.  Ewan  Brook 
Mr.  M.  Brier 
Mr.  R.  Lewis 
Mr.  C.  Miles 
Mr.  G.  Playford 


The  first  American  production  was  made  by  Mr. 
Stuart  Walker  in  his  Portmanteau  Theater,  at 
Hartford,  Connecticut,  on  October  24th,  1916,  with 
scenery  designed  by  Mr.  Frank  J.  Zimmerer,  and 
with  the  following  cast : 
180 


APPENDIX 


First  Sentry      ....        Mr.  Edgar  Stehli 
Second  Sentry  ....        Mr.  Lew  Medbury 

A  Stranger Mr.  Ward  Thornton 

Boy Miss  Agnes  Rogers 

Girl Miss  Nancy  Winston 

iMr.  Gregory  Kelly 
Mr.  Charles  Mason 
Mr.  John  Higgins 

The  King Mr.  McKay  Morris 

The  Chamberlain  .    .    .        Mr.  Willard  Webster 
First  Prophet    ....        Mr.  Robert  Cook 
Second  Prophet     .    .    .        Mr.  Frank  J.  Zimmerer 
Chief  Prophet  ....        Mr.  Ward  Thornton 

During  the  season  of  1916-1917,  Mr.  Walker 
played  "The  Golden  Doom"  in  New  York  11  times, 
as  well  as  in  many  other  American  cities. 


The  Lost  Silk  Hat 

Produced  by  Mr.  B.  Iden  Payne,  at  the  Gaiety 
Theatre,  Manchester,  on  August  4th,  1913,  with  the 
following  cast : 


The  Caller    . 
The  Laborer  . 
The  Clerk 
The  Poet  .    . 
The  Policeman 


Mr.  Basil  Ryder 
Mr.  H.  F.  Maltby 
Mr.  Leonard  Chapman 
Mr.  Ernest  C.  Cassel 
Mr.  Tom  Kilfoy 


There  has  been  no  notable  American  production. 

181 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 


A  Night  at  an  Inn 

The  first  production  was  at  the  Neighborhood 
Playhouse,  New  York  City,  on  May  13th,  1916, 
with  the  following  cast : 

A.  E.  SCOTT-FORTESQUE  {The 

Toff) Mr.  David  Solomon 

William  Jones  {Bill)    ]       .        Mr.  Max  M.  Kaplan 

Albert  Thomas  Sailors  Mr.  S.  P.  Zalmanovic 

Jacob  Smith  {Snig- 
gers) 

First  Priest  of  Klesh   . 

Second  Priest  of  Klesh 

Third  Priest  of  Klesh 

Klesh 


Mr.  Sol  Friedman 
Mr.  Jacob  Liss 
Mr.  Ira  Uhr 
Mr.  David  Goldstein 
Mr.  Norman  Nacman 


There  has  been  no  notable  British  production. 


The  Queen's  Enemies 

First  produced  at  The  Neighborhood  Playhouse, 
New  York  City,  on  November  14th,  1916,  with 
scenery  designed  by  Mr.  Howard  Kretz  and  Mr. 
Warren  Dahler,  with  costumes  designed  by  and 
executed  under  the  direction  of  Miss  Aline  Bern- 
stein and  Miss  Ruth  Deike,  with  lighting  effects 
devised  by  Mr.  Dennis  Sullivan,  and  with  the  fol- 
lowing cast : 
182 


APPENDIX 


Tharrabas Mr.  Albert  J.  Carroll 

Tharni Mr.  Erskine  Sanford 

Harlee Mr.  Arthur  Wood 

The  Queen Miss  Alice  Lewisohn 

AcKAZARPESES     ....  Miss  Louise  Coleman 

Prince  Zophernes     .    .  Mr.  Henley  Edwards 

Prince  Rhadamandaspes  Mr.  Leslie  Austen 

Priest  of  Horus  .    .    .  Mr.  C.  Haviland  Chappell 

Mr.  Arnold  Rittenberg 
Mr.  J.  F.  Roach 

Slaves Mr.  William  Essex 

Mr.  Arthur  Stevens 

On  the  18th  of  December  the  production  was 
transferred  to  The  Maxine  Elliott  Theater,  with 
the  substitution  of  Miss  Cathleen  Nesbit  for  Miss 
Lewisohn  in  the  part  of  the  Queen ;  thus  leaving  the 
cast  entirely  composed  of  professionals.  There  has 
been  no  notable  British  production. 

The  Tents  of  the  Arabs 

The  first  production  of  this  play  took  place  at 
the  dedicatory  performance  of  the  Arts  and  Crafts 
Theater,  Detroit.  The  production  was  in  charge 
of  Sam  Hume,  who  also  designed  the  set,  in  which 
he  was  assisted  by  Judson  Smith.  Three  perform- 
ances were  given  on  the  16th,  17th,  and  18th  of 
November,  1916.    The  cast  was  as  follows : 

183 


DUNSANY    THE    DRAMATIST 

Bel-Narb Carl  Guske 

AooB Eugene  J.  Sharkey 

The  King R.J,  Elliott 

The  Chamberlain Harry  B.  Elliott 

Zabra Edward  Loud 

EzNARZA Louise  Vhay 

There  has  been  no  British  production. 


184 


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PR  6007  D92B4 


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